SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The sight of Funny Cide standing alone on the Saratoga main track with fans packed along the apron from one end to the other and the sound of "Wind Beneath My Wings" blaring from the loudspeakers proved too much for Dave Mahan to take.
It was all part of a retirement party for Funny Cide thrown Friday at Saratoga by the New York Racing Association and the New York Thoroughbred Racing and Breeding program.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Student Council, a stakes winner at Sam Houston Race Park earlier this year, has been purchased privately by Ro Parra and will start in the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 19.
Student Council, 5, has won 5 of 20 starts and $252,731. He was previously owned by breeder Will Farish and trained by Neil Howard. Student Council was scratched from Friday's fifth race at Saratoga, an optional claimer. He is scheduled to arrive in California on Tuesday, according to Vladimir Cerin, who will train the horse in California.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - True Metropolitan is back at Hastings after a successful trip to Woodbine where he won the Grade 3 Dominion Day as well as an allowance race that served as a prep for the Dominion Day.
According to trainer Terry Jordan, one of the reasons True Metropolitan is back on the West Coast is the weather.
"It's about 200 degrees in Toronto right now," Jordan said. "The weather here is a lot milder and he's a lot more comfortable in the cooler climate."
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Better Talk Now was declared out of Saturday's Grade 1, $500,000 Sword Dancer Invitational at Saratoga due to an injury to his left front ankle, trainer Graham Motion said Friday.
His defection figures to leave English Channel a heavy favorite in the 1 1/2-mile turf race.
Motion said that Better Talk Now suffered a puncture wound to his left front ankle during the running of the United Nations Handicap at Monmouth Park, in which he finished third, three lengths behind English Channel.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Medici Code's introduction to California racing went poorly. The English import finished sixth in the Santa Anita Derby last April, a performance that ended any remote chance of a start in the Kentucky Derby.
His introduction to Del Mar went much better, a second-place finish by a head in a division of the Oceanside Stakes on July 18.
The restricted Oceanside was a prep to the $150,000 La Jolla Handicap for 3-year-olds on Saturday, a race that can show why Herrick Racing paid approximately $585,000 for Medici Code in a private deal earlier this year.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Rather than play it cute, they decided to play it straight. Mixed Up was using the Grade 2, $84,900 A.P. Smithwick Memorial on Thursday at Saratoga as a prep for the Grade 1 New York Turf Writers Handicap later this month, and he signaled his readiness for a defense of his 2006 Turf Writers title with a gutsy victory over front-running Preemptive Strike.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - The battle for leading rider is hot at Fort Erie between Robbie King Jr. and Chad Beckon.
King, who leads with 49 wins, is winning at 20 percent, while Beckon has 43 wins and an 18 percent winning rate.
One of the leading percentage riders is Daniel David, who is going along at a 22 percent clip, with 34 winners.
Also noteworthy is Tyler Pizarro, the top rider at Woodbine who comes to the Fort on Mondays and Tuesdays when that track is dark. Going into Saturday, Pizarro had 14 wins from 39 mounts (36 percent).
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Trainer Mark Shuman admits to being "more nervous than I'd been in a while" before saddling Talent Search in the $100,000 Teddy Drone Stakes Wednesday at Monmouth Park.
Shuman had trained the 4-year-old Talent Search lightly for his first start since the runner lost a shoe and suffered a badly bruised left hind foot while finishing second in the Maryland Sprint Handicap on the Preakness Stakes undercard.
"He was about 80 percent sharp and fit," Shuman said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - This summer is going so well for the New York Racing Association that even Saturday's $500,000 Sword Dancer Invitational is worthy of its Grade 1 billing.
Often overshadowed by the more prestigious and richer Arlington Million run on the same day, Saturday's 33rd renewal of the Sword Dancer features the seventh match-up between multimillionaires English Channel and Better Talk Now. Those two headline a nine-horse field entered for the 1 1/2-mile turf stakes run over Saratoga's inner turf course.