ARCADIA, Calif. - World-class sprinters Bordonaro and Proud Tower Too side-stepped each other long enough. They meet Saturday for the first time in a six-furlong explosion called the Sunshine Millions Sprint.
Stand back and shade your eyes.
"They both have speed, and they both run fast," said Sal Gonzalez, trainer of Proud Tower Too. "There isn't much mystery. It's just a matter of who the best horse is."
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - At this time a year ago, Attila's Storm's career seemed ready to take off. Coming off a good second in the Grade 1 Malibu at Santa Anita, Attila's Storm went into the Grade 2 Palos Verdes Handicap as a strong favorite.
Attila's Storm came up on the short end of a three-horse photo, finishing third behind Major Success and Jet West, beaten a neck. Worse yet, he emerged from the race with a fractured hind leg that would require surgery and knock him out most of the year.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Devil House has done things easily up to this point, winning her last three starts by a combined margin of 13 lengths. Saturday, she will get what her trainer, Terry Gestes, calls her first real test when she takes on stakes winners Cohiba Miss, Miss Goodnight, and Cat on a Cloud in the $50,000 Dixie Belle at Oaklawn Park.
The six-furlong race drew nine 3-year-old fillies, among them $2 million yearling purchase Kauai Calls.
"It's definitely going to be a test," said Gestes.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Kent Molinaro thought enough of Top Her Now as a 2-year-old that he purchased her for $55,000 at the Barretts May sale. Seventeen months later, last October, she made her debut for an $8,000 claiming tag at Fresno and led wire to wire. Nearly six weeks after that, she made her second start, again winning in wire-to-wire fashion, and was claimed for $12,500.
When she made her first start for her new barn, on Dec. 8 at Bay Meadows, Molinaro claimed her back for $20,000, and she rang up her third straight wire-to-wire victory.
By JOHN SWENSON
NEW ORLEANS - The $75,000 Black Gold Stakes, Saturday's feature race at Fair Grounds, is unusual in that it's a turf stakes that has attracted only a single horse, Pete the Poet, who has ever won a race on the grass. Seven 3-year-old colts were entered in the 5 1/2-furlong sprint.
Pete the Poet won his maiden on turf in September in his second start, then showed speed before tiring when sent around two turns on the grass at Keeneland.
The Maryland Jockey Club has removed the $500,000 Pimlico Special from its stakes schedule this year, citing the need to use the race's purse to boost overnight awards.
The cancellation of the Special, the second-richest race at Pimlico behind the $1 million Preakness Stakes, is the second for the race in the last six years. The Maryland Jockey Club also canceled the race in 2002 in order to divert the purse into the overnight program.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Handicappers will have to choose between the reputation of Attila's Storm and the accomplishments of Bishop Court Hill when deciding whom to back in Saturday's $65,000 Paumonok Handicap at Aqueduct.
Mr. Pursuit, More Than Regal, and Student Council head a competitive mix of shippers and locals in Saturday night's $100,000 Maxxam Gold Cup, the premier dirt race for older horses at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.
The 1 1/8-mile handicap drew a field of 10, with Student Council and defending champ Middleweight invading from Fair Grounds, and More Than Regal, Charming Socialite, and Goosey Moose leading the cast from Sam Houston.
ARCADIA, Calif. - If a career-best performance last month by Take D' Tour is a prelude to the dreaded bounce, then someone forgot to tell the 6-year-old mare.
Take D' Tour will be favored Saturday in the $500,000 Sunshine Millions Distaff at Santa Anita, and her behavior early this week in California suggests she will deliver an effort similar to her last start - a 14-length Calder blowout that earned a sky-high 110 Beyer Speed Figure.
"Hopefully if she does bounce it won't be enough to get her beat," trainer David Fawkes said Thursday morning at Santa Anita.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - If trainer Allen Jerkens had his druthers, the $300,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Sprint would be a little longer than six furlongs. But Jerkens has certainly overcome far more formidable obstacles during his Hall of Fame career, so it may not be wise to overlook the chances of either of his entrants, Swap Fliparoo and Grecian Lover, in arguably the most competitive of the four Sunshine Millions races to be decided at Gulfstream Park on Saturday.