Horses who made their last start in Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey are among the leading contenders in a pair of $40,000 restricted stakes for 2-year-olds at Philadelphia Park.
Both stakes will be contested at 6 1/2 furlongs and are restricted to 2-year-olds that spent at least 90 days in South Carolina and whose connections paid a $100 nomination fee to the South Carolina Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association.
Adore the Gold, an impressive winner of a stakes when he made his two-turn debut two starts ago, will shorten up to seven furlongs for Saturday's $85,000 H. Steward Mitchell Stakes for 2-year-olds at Laurel Park.
Based at Delaware Park with trainer Mike Gorham, Adore the Gold easily won his first two starts, including the $100,000 Dover by 2 1/4 lengths at his home track.
In the Grade 3, one-mile Nashua at Aqueduct last time out, Adore the Gold made a middle move to secure second after six furlongs before tiring to finish fifth.
MIAMI - Gun Salute began the year with the promise of becoming one of the top grass runners in the country. He'll end the year hoping to build some momentum heading into the 2007 campaign. Saturday, in his final start of the year, Gun Salute goes off as the likely favorite against 11 rivals in the Grade 3 Tropical Turf Handicap at Calder.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - A series of longshots in the final races at Hollywood Park on Wednesday, including a $119 winner in the sixth race, produced a pick six carryover of $95,138 into Thursday's races.
Thursday's card begins at 12:30 pm Pacific time. The pick six begins on the third race, scheduled for 1:30.
The day's featured seventh race is headed by Forthewrongreason, who figures to get plenty of action based on a troubled trip in her last start. She is the 5-2 choice on the morning line of Russ Hudak, the linemaker at Hollywood Park.
This year's Delta Jackpot has turned into a melting pot of sorts. The Grade 3, $1 million race, which has been won by California-based horses in two of its three runnings, has drawn its largest cross-section of starters ever for Friday night's renewal at Delta Downs. The members of the full 10-horse field last raced in either New York, California, Kentucky, Maryland, Louisiana, or Canada.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Russell Baze is more than a talented rider with strong determination and a fierce will to win. He's also quite a diplomat.
The man who will be the world's winningest rider for many years to come often has his pick of mounts in a race, but he can ride only one horse.
Baze had six mounts on Wednesday at Bay Meadows, and he won with one of them, leaving his career total at 9,529, still one short of Laffit Pincay Jr.'s all-time record of 9,530. Baze was scheduled on six more mounts for Thursday and seven on Friday.
MIAMI - South Florida will be the home of Breeders' Cup champions this winter.
Four of the eight Breeders' Cup winners are already stabled in the area, with a fifth, Street Sense, expected to join trainer Carl Nafzger's stable at Palm Meadows in the near future.
CHICAGO - If at first your can't-miss favorite misfires, bet, and bet, and bet again. That, at least, is the story of Mysterious Legend, who gobbled up win money throughout the fall before finally paying dividends with an easy win on Nov. 4. But after losing three straight races at odds of 9-5, 4-5, and 3-5, that $3.20 win payoff last time out wasn't sending anyone to the moon. And those interested in playing Hawthorne's featured third race on Friday face another Mysterious Legend dilemma: Take another short price, or try to beat the horse.
It is a rarity to find a single Grade 1 winner on a card at Delta Downs. But two in one race?
That is exactly what will take place Friday night when Appealing Zophie and Meadow Breeze meet in the $300,000 Delta Princess.
The one-mile race for 2-year-old fillies is one of five stakes on the card, and also part of a $50,000 -guaranteed all-stakes pick four that begins with the fifth race and concludes with the featured Grade 3, $1 million Delta Jackpot.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Gary Contessa began defense of his Aqueduct inner-track training title in fine fashion Wednesday, saddling three winners on the opening day card of the four-month meet.
Contessa, who won 61 races during the 2005-06 inner-track season, had nine horses entered for Thursday's card and put in another six for Friday. Among his sextet on Friday is Fighting Speedy, one of eight fillies and mares entered for the day's featured third-level allowance race at six furlongs.
