ELMONT, N.Y. – Con Lima, winner of the Grade 3 Saratoga Oaks after running second in the Belmont Oaks, will miss Saturday’s $700,000 Jockey Club Oaks due to a physical setback, according to Aron Wellman, head of the Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners syndicate, which is majority owner of the filly.
Wellman said Con Lima has been sent to Kentucky to be evaluated by Larry Bramlage at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Corey Lanerie missed the entire Kentucky Downs meet with a shoulder injury suffered in a spill Sept. 3, the penultimate day at Ellis Park, but the 46-year-old jockey reiterated Monday through agent Corey Prewitt that he definitely intends to ride the entire September meet at Churchill Downs, where he has been the dominant rider much of the last decade.
All-sources handle at a six-day Kentucky Downs meet that ended Sunday was $74,088,532, easily breaking the record of $59.8 million set last year at the turf-only track in south-central Kentucky. A single-day handle record of $20,849,967 also was established Saturday on the 11-race Calumet Turf Cup card, surpassing the former mark of $17.4 million.
Sixty-four races were run this year (as opposed to 62 races during the six-day 2020 meet), with favorites winning 22 of them (34.4 percent). Field size averaged 10.2 starters per race.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Christophe Clement, who enjoyed the most successful Belmont meet in his career during the spring, hopes to get the Belmont fall session off to a quick start with runners in four of the six flat stakes to be run opening weekend.
Clement will run Soldier Rising in Saturday’s $1 million Jockey Club Derby a day after he sends out two runners in both the Christiecat and Allied Forces – $100,000 turf sprint stakes for 3-year-old fillies and 3-year-olds, respectively. On Sunday, he plans to run Plum Ali in the $150,000 Pebbles Stakes.
Going Global, a five-time stakes winner and top 3-year-old filly in California this year, will face older fillies and mares for the first time in the Grade 2 Goldikova Stakes at a mile on turf at Del Mar on Nov. 6.
Going Global won the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks at 1 1/8 miles on turf on Aug. 21 in her most recent start. She won four stakes at Santa Anita earlier this year.
Idol, unraced since winning the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap in March, is proceeding toward a comeback and is scheduled to be transferred from the San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego County to trainer Richard Baltas’s stable at Santa Anita this week.
Baltas said on Sunday that Idol will be nominated for the Grade 1 Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 2, but stopped short of committing the 4-year-old to the $300,000 race at 1 1/8 miles.
The average starters per race at the Gulfstream Park meet is a solid 7.94. The average will likely increase when racing begins on the new Tapeta track beginning the week of Sept. 23. The base of the all-weather track was being laid late last week, and horses will start training over it after the safety rail is installed.
Gulfstream is the first track in North America with three different surfaces: a 1 1/8-mile dirt track, seven-furlong turf course, and mile and 70-yard Tapeta track.
Jockey Silvio Amador was given a three-day suspension by Los Alamitos stewards on Sunday for failing to ride Wicked Sunset to the finish of a $6,250 claiming race at 5 1/2 furlongs in Saturday’s third race.
Wicked Sunset was closing with interest when Amador rose from the saddle as the field passed an infield placing judge’s stand in the final sixteenth. Amador rode 5-2 Wicked Sunset more vigorously in the final strides, but finished three-quarters of a length behind pacesetter Back Beauty ($6.40).
Flightline, the brilliantly fast undefeated 3-year-old, is under consideration for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 6, even though he has yet to appear in a stakes.
Trainer John Sadler said Sunday that he plans to meet with members of the expansive partnership that owns Flightline at the Keeneland yearling sales in coming days to discuss options.
Sadler said a start in a race such as the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship at six furlongs on Oct. 2 is not planned.
“We wouldn’t run before the Breeders’ Cup,” Sadler said.
