The $500,000 Sunland Park Derby will anchor a card of six stakes worth $1.1 million when it is renewed on Feb. 15, according to a press release from Sunland. The New Mexico track opens its 55-date meet Jan. 2 and will race through April 5.
The Sunland Derby, which last year was worth $400,000, will be run over 1 1/16 miles. It offers Kentucky Derby points to the first five finishers on a scale of 20-10-6-4-2.
Kentucky Derby points will be on the line next Saturday when the unbeaten multiple stakes winner Arctic Beast meets Grade 3 winner Spice Runner and local stakes winners Essential Time and Royalamerican in the $300,000 Springboard Mile at Remington Park.
The 2-year-olds are part of a field of 12 that was drawn on Friday. The Springboard Mile offers its first five finishers points on a scale of 10-5-3-2-1. Coal Battle, who won the race last season, went on to capture the Smarty Jones and Rebel at Oaklawn Park.
Five G, a two-time stakes winner at Gulfstream Park earlier this year, is scheduled to be loaded on a van on Saturday morning for a journey of approximately 2,600 miles from Palm Beach Downs in Florida to Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif.
The purpose of the trip is a start in the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes, a $300,000 race for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs on Dec. 26, opening day of Santa Anita’s winter-spring meeting.
Considering her race record, the lengthy van ride and a layoff since late March may not keep Five G from having an important role in the race.
Full Serrano, one of California’s leading older males in the last 18 months, worked a half-mile in 48.60 seconds at Santa Anita on Friday for a 2026 campaign.
Full Serrano has not raced since he finished fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar on Nov. 1, a race he won in 2024 at Del Mar.
Trainer John Sadler said on Thursday that Full Serrano will miss the Grade 2 Laffit Pincay Jr. Stakes at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita on Dec. 26, opening day of the track’s winter-spring meeting.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The new meet is bringing some upgrades across the property, including the Jockey Club, according to Oaklawn president Lou Cella.
“On the club side, we’ve now completed renovation of all new televisions on every table,” he said. “Every table in the club has a brand new, beautiful television. We also put a gift shop in the club.”
Oaklawn also is offering club members an Oaklawn credit card. It’s an account for which they can charge anything on the property.
“It’s just a little perk,” said Cella.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Oaklawn Park’s opening day got off to a rousing start Friday morning when Arkansas Derby winner Sandman breezed over the local strip as part of an outstanding division of horses Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse is preparing for the meet.
It’s a regular Mark’s Millionaires Row, really.
Even as trainer Chris Block this fall bade farewell to the mare Oeuvre, a multi-season stakes stalwart in his stable, the 4-year-old colt Moonlight was developing into a stakes horse.
Moonlight probably heads next to the $175,000 Louisiana Stakes on Jan. 17 at Fair Grounds, his winter base, while Oeuvre has headed off to life as a broodmare.
Rather than make his regular move to Fair Grounds following the end of the Churchill Downs meet late last month, the jockey Florent Geroux followed a far different path. The Japan Racing Association granted Geroux a short-term license spanning Dec. 5-31 and Geroux has taken the opportunity to expand his horizons.
Not long after winning the Clark Stakes on Nov. 30, Magnitude shipped south and settled comfortably into his winter home in the Steve Asmussen barn at Fair Grounds. His next race comes far from home: the $20 million Saudi Cup on Feb. 14 at King Abdulaziz Racecourse in Riyadh.
“Magnitude will be in New Orleans until he gets on a plane and goes to Saudi Arabia,” said David Fiske, racing manager for Ron Winchell’s Winchell Thoroughbreds, Magnitude’s owner. “He’s doing great. I get videos of him every morning.”
Two barns at Tampa Bay Downs have been placed under quarantine after a horse stabled in one of them tested positive for equine herpesvirus, a highly contagious virus that can cause respiratory disease, reproductive issues, and neurological conditions.
The horse who tested positive, from the barn of trainer Kathleen O’Connell, has been moved to an off-site clinic, according to Allison DeLuca, Tampa’s racing secretary.
