DEL MAR, Calif. – The recent turf stakes winners Conducted and Gold Phoenix will miss stakes opportunities at Del Mar and Los Alamitos in the coming days and weeks in favor of races at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.
Conducted won the $201,500 Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance Stakes at a mile on turf on Oct. 31 at Del Mar and is likely to have his next start in the $100,000 Eddie Logan Stakes at a mile on turf for 2-year-olds on Dec. 28 at Santa Anita.
Giocoso has found his best stride in 3-year-old turf stakes this summer and fall and scored his second graded stakes win in this division on Saturday evening at Churchill Downs. But trainer Keith Desormeaux hopes to show the strapping colt’s versatility in the coming year, with new goals to reach for.
“We’d like to get a graded stakes on dirt – that’s the next goal,” Desormeaux said post-race, after Giocoso edged Chapman’s Peak to win the Grade 3 Commonwealth Turf on Saturday.
Trainer Michael Campbell is at Tampa Bay Downs again this winter. His stable’s star, Patriot Spirit, will join him there later this winter.
Patriot Spirit won the Grade 3 Vosburgh at Aqueduct to earn an automatic berth into the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, where he finished 13th in the 14-horse field. Campbell said Patriot Spirit’s trips from Kentucky to Del Mar and in the Breeders’ Cup were difficult, and the horse is getting a few months off in Kentucky. Following a physical examination, all checked out well with Patriot Spirit, Campbell said.
Ted Noffey, the undefeated winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, has been made the 6-1 individual favorite in the Kentucky Derby Future Wager pool opening on Thursday.
Ted Noffey, who is the likely 2-year-old champion, is one of 39 individual horses being offered in the pool, which will close on Sunday. The final entry, “all others foaled in 2023,” is the 9-5 favorite.
Assael Espinoza, a leading rider in Northern California in recent years, has relocated to Oaklawn Park in Arkansas in advance of the track’s lucrative winter-spring meeting that opens on Dec. 12.
Espinoza has not ridden in California since Oct. 5. He said earlier this week that he spent much of October visiting family in Mexico before working horses earlier this month at Churchill Downs. Espinoza had one mount at Churchill on Nov. 15 before moving to Hot Springs, Ark., to prepare for the Oaklawn meeting.
Few Southern California trainers are as eager as George Papaprodromou for the resumption of racing at Del Mar on Saturday.
Papaprodromou and John Sadler begin the weekend tied for first in the trainer standings with six wins. Papaprodromou is seeking his first training title.
Friday’s program was canceled because of overnight rain, leading the track to alter its racing schedule this weekend to a Saturday-through-Monday format. Papaprodromou has nine runners over those days compared to six for Sadler.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Full Screen, a six-length winner of a third-level allowance here Thursday, may have earned a start in the $150,000 Queens County Stakes here Dec. 27.
Full Screen, a 6-year-old gelding by Big Screen who’s trained by Brad Cox, ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:47.41, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 100 for the performance.
“Impressive,” Cox said of Full Screen’s effort. “I’m glad I got him back up there.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Though the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile ultimately went off with just six horses at Del Mar earlier this month, trainer Danny Gargan said he has no regrets that Talkin was not in that field.
Talkin, second to Napoleon Solo in the Grade 1 Champagne at Aqueduct, was barely considered for the Breeders’ Cup in large part because his connections did not want to ship cross-country to Southern California. The Juvenile, won by Ted Noffey, originally drew eight entrants but went postward with just six horses.
Intrepido, winner of the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 4, but fifth of six in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar on Oct. 31, will not race again this year.
Trainer Jeff Mullins said on Thursday that Intrepido’s next start will occur at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting that begins on Dec. 26. There are four graded stakes for 3-year-olds on dirt at the meeting, beginning with the Grade 2 San Vicente Stakes at seven furlongs on Jan. 10, followed by the Grade 3 Robert Lewis Stakes at a mile on Feb. 7.
