ALBANY, Calif. - One racing superstition is that horses should not be named after friends, but trainer Bill Morey Jr. thought it nice when breeder Martin Bach named a filly after his longtime friend, the late Bart Heller.
Thisonesforbart meets five rivals in Friday's Golden Gate Fields feature, a $40,000 starter allowance at 1o1/16 miles.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Red Raymond comes out of one of the most productive races run anywhere this winter. Second in that race, he should start as a strong favorite in Friday's featured ninth race at Oaklawn Park.
Red Raymond can become the sixth horse to exit a Dec. 10 optional claimer at Fair Grounds and win his next start. He will face eight other rivals in a 1 1/16-mile optional claimer here Friday, among them Codasco, an allowance winner at Churchill Downs, and the Grade 3-placed Woody's Apache.
Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn., has scheduled 32 stakes worth more than $1.5 million for its 2007 meet, which will run from May 5 through Sept. 3.
The highlights of the schedule are the $100,000 Lady Canterbury, a one-mile turf race for fillies and mares on July 14, and the Minnesota Festival of Champions on Aug. 19. The Festival of Champions offers seven stakes for Minnesota-breds worth a combined $335,000.
Canterbury has held seven of the first eight editions of the Claiming Crown, but that event will be held at Ellis Park in Kentucky this year.
Tiny slots-fueled Delta Downs annually hosts one race worth
$1 million, the Delta Jackpot, but on Saturday night the track spreads a million bucks out over 10 races, all of them for horses bred in the state of Louisiana.
On tap for Louisiana Premier Night are six stakes races, worth between $100,000 and $200,000, and four starter-allowance races with purses between $45,000 and $55,000. For one day at least, it is Delta, not Fair Grounds, offering the best winter racing in Louisiana.
Will Farish and trainer Neil Howard have won the Grade 3 Ben Ali Stakes at Keeneland four times in the last six years, and might have developed another candidate last Saturday night at Sam Houston Race Park when Student Council won his first stakes in the $100,000 Maxxam Gold Cup. The race is the same one that Alumni Hall, owned in partnership by Farish and trained by Howard, won in 2005 prior to winning the Ben Ali.
Horsemen who run allowance-class stock often bemoan the persistent difficulty of filling higher-class allowance races, and to try to alleviate that problem, Fair Grounds has, in its current condition book, loosened the allowance conditions at some levels. In such spots, wins in statebred-restricted races don't count against a horse's eligibility for an open allowance condition. For example, a horse might have won several Louisiana-bred stakes races, but could still retain his eligibility for, say, an open second-level allowance race.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Convincing the 3-year-old Tenfold to reserve his speed has become a chore for trainer Bob Baffert. The promising colt simply wants to do too much early in his races.
That habit could make Tenfold a vulnerable favorite in a $55,000 allowance race at a mile for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita on Friday. The race is a prep to the $300,000 Robert Lewis Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on March 3.
The Lewis Stakes is named in honor of the late Eclipse Award-winning owner. Tenfold is owned by Lewis's widow, Beverly.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita Park could have used a synthetic racing surface on its main track on Wednesday morning.
A day after nearly a quarter-inch of rain fell in Southern California, there was limited training on the main track, with the course opening late for full training and only 28 horses recording official workouts.
By comparison, 100 horses were given workout times at Hollywood Park, which installed a synthetic surface on its main track last summer.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Money makes the mare go, and so only a small handful of them will contest Saturday's $65,000 Correction Handicap at Aqueduct. As of midweek, probable starters for the 67th running of the six-furlong Correction included A Bit of Pressure, Magnolia Jackson, Mint Landing, and Towering Escape. How 'bout No, Merryland Monroe, and Spenny were listed as possible.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Howard Tesher did not expect to have Baron Von Tap dropped in his lap. Nor did the trainer expect to run the horse on Friday at Gulfstream Park. But through a serendipitous series of events, Tesher picked up Baron Von Tap, then was hustled by Gulfstream's racing office to run in the featured seventh race, a 1 1/8-mile grass race that drew just seven runners chasing a purse of $49,500.