OZONE PARK, N.Y. - While the Grade 1, $750,000 Wood Memorial is billed as the marquee event on Saturday's 11-race card at Aqueduct, there are several other stakes on the undercard that could serve as stand-alone events.
The Grade 1, $300,000 Carter Handicap drew an excellent field of seven sprinters led by Grade 1 winner Latent Heat, the speedy multiple sprint-stakes winner Keyed Entry, and the late-running Silver Wagon.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The field for Saturday's Grade 1, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct took on a dramatically different look when entries were taken Wednesday as trainer Todd Pletcher decided not to run Circular Quay but instead put in Any Given Saturday and Cowtown Cat.
Of those two, only Any Given Saturday is expected to start, with Cowtown Cat slated to run in Saturday's $500,000 Illinois Derby at Hawthorne. Thus, the Wood will likely have six starters, led by Remsen winner Nobiz Like Shobiz, Tampa Bay Derby runner-up Any Given Saturday, and Whirlaway winner Summer Doldrums.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Patrick Biancone once again is far ahead of the curve, although that's nothing new for a trainer who had a Horse of the Year when he was a mere 31. Biancone was an outspoken proponent of Polytrack before some horsemen had even heard of the synthetic surface, and now that Keeneland is overwhelmed with requests for stalls, Biancone is reaping the benefit of foresight, having been granted enough space to keep 65 horses on the grounds.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Josie Carroll had a solid winter meeting at Fair Grounds, sending out eight winners and 18 other in-the-money finishers from 61 starters.
But Carroll was not present for the entire Fair Grounds meeting; she returned home to Woodbine in mid-March.
"I wanted to get horses ready for the opening weekend," said Carroll, who has 37 stalls here. "I'm pretty happy with the results."
It's not unusual for a racetrack to make minor changes to the conditions of its signature event. Changes in name, a tweak in distance, or a date adjustment are a few of the ways tracks have enhanced or maintained the status of a race that forms a large part of their identity.
Rare, however, is for a track to make a more radical change, such as a surface switch, to its premier race. But that is what River Downs in Cincinnati has done with the $200,000 Cradle Stakes, which will be run on turf for the first time on Labor Day, Sept. 3, capping a 105-day meet that begins Friday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Funny Cide has had 34 races in his storybook career, including one that brought him racing immortality - a victory in the 2003 Kentucky Derby. None of those starts were on any surface other than dirt.
His 35th start, however, will mark a change for Funny Cide. The 7-year-old gelding is one of 12 older horses entered in the eighth race on the Friday opener at Keeneland, a $67,000 allowance to be run at 1 1/16 miles over Polytrack.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Miesque's Approval will not return to the U.S. following his 15th-place finish in Saturday's Dubai Duty Free Stakes.
According to trainer Marty Wolfson, a deal to sell Miesque's Approval to breeding interests in the Southern Hemisphere will be completed by owner Charlotte Weber's Live Oak Plantation within the next several days. Wolfson said the Dubai Duty Free was the final start of Miesque's Approval amazing career, and the end of a Cinderella story that saw the former claimer win both the Breeders' Cup Mile and an Eclipse Award at the age of 7.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. Fresh off his victory in last Saturdays $6 million Dubai World Cup, reigning Horse of the Year Invasor was scheduled to return to his Belmont Park base Wednesday afternoon to prepare for what will most likely be a three-race summer/fall campaign.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Although many of the nation's top-ranked 3-year-olds have been based in Southern California this winter and spring, many of them have hightailed it out of town. Notional and Stormello ran last week in the Florida Derby, Circular Quay went last month to the Louisiana Derby, Cobalt Blue is running in the Illinois Derby on Saturday, and Great Hunter is awaiting next week's Blue Grass Stakes.
CHICAGO - Hawthorne racing officials had hoped a trio of fence-sitting possible starters for Saturday's Illinois Derby would swell the field for the spring meet's biggest race to 12 horses or thereabouts, but the local derby appears headed for something like a nine-horse gate.