It’s Our Time, the 17 3/4-length debut winning 2-year-old at Saratoga who finished fourth in Saturday’s Grade 1 Champagne at Aqueduct, could very well run again this year, but it won’t be in the Breeders’ Cup.
“We’re going to take it a little slower than we did after that last race,” trainer Tom Amoss said. “I foresee him running probably in Kentucky once he recovers. What kind of race, I don’t know.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The jockey John Velazquez, 53, inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2012, won three races at Keeneland’s spring meeting in April. Last October, he won six. Velazquez has put together good Keeneland meets before, but this one came somewhat out of nowhere.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. was badly hurt on Sept. 21 at Churchill Downs when his mount Sgt. Garcia broke down. Hernandez injuries: a lacerated liver, seven broken ribs, and a punctured lung. Hernandez had surgery to address internal bleeding and to insert screws and plates in his ribs.
And yet there Hernandez stood in a spiffy outfit Saturday at Keeneland, looking hale and hearty.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Rhetorical, minor upset winner of the Grade 1, $1.25 million Coolmore Turf Mile, heads a considerable list of turf horses who raced at Keeneland over the weekend and – no surprise – are bound for Breeders’ Cup races.
The 2-year-old colt Outfielder passed his dirt test with a two-length allowance win going six furlongs Saturday at Keeneland. He is likely to now get a route test.
“As big as he is, we’re thinking about stretching him out,” trainer Wesley Ward said.
Ward ran Outfielder on turf early because of his size, believing the surface would be easier on him at that point in his development. The colt ran creditably, winning his debut in May at Churchill Downs and finishing fourth in the Group 1 Prix Morny, a tough assignment, in August in France.
In a stellar opening weekend at Keeneland in which he won a pair of graded stakes, trainer Brendan Walsh also opened the book on a potential star for the future.
The 2-year-old filly Bella Ballerina, a Godolphin homebred, is a half-sister to Eclipse Award champion Pretty Mischievous, winner of the 2023 Kentucky Oaks for Godolphin and Walsh. Bella Ballerina, with blinkers on for her debut going six furlongs on Sunday, drew clear by 4 1/4 lengths in the stretch, earning a 70 Beyer Speed Figure.
After sweeping Keeneland’s Grade 1 races for dirt 2-year-olds, Ted Noffey and Tommy Jo are headed back to Saratoga, where they launched their careers, to prepare for their biggest test yet, the Breeders’ Cup on Oct. 31 at Del Mar.
Both horses are trained by Todd Pletcher for Spendthrift Farm.
“They will head to Saratoga, where Todd has his Breeders’ Cup horses, on Monday,” Sophie Green, who is overseeing the Pletcher barn at Keeneland, said the morning after Ted Noffey won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity.
Chismosa changed owner and breeder Jaime Renella’s outlook on racing. Watching a filly amass five stakes wins in a little more than two years will do that to an owner with a small stable.
“If I won an allowance race, I was the happiest guy in the word,” Renella said earlier this week.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After spending last winter riding at Gulfstream Park, where he did pretty well, jockey Dylan Davis will stay in New York this upcoming winter.
Davis said he will do what many other riders do during the winter, which is fly down to Gulfstream as needed. Despite missing the first month of Gulfstream Park’s winter meet, Davis won 38 races – good enough for seventh in the standings – and his horses earned $2.38 million.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Igniter, a one-length winner of a one-mile allowance race at Aqueduct on Sept. 27, will make his next start in the Grade 2, $250,000 Remsen Stakes here on Dec. 6, trainer Rick Dutrow said this week.
“I think he wants to go two turns, that’s what we think he’s looking for,” said Dutrow, who trains Igniter for Three Chimneys Farm. “I think giving him time is going to help him run bigger that day.”
