MIAMI - Saturday's third race may have been a perfect indication of what to expect from the jockeys' race between now and the end of the Tropical at Calder meeting on Jan. 2.
Leading riders Jermaine Bridgmohan and Manoel Cruz hooked up aboard Go Native and 4-5 favorite Valentine Verse from the half-mile pole to the wire in the mile turf race for 2-year-old fillies, with neither giving a quarter until Bridgmohan and Go Native edged to a narrow victory in the closing yards.
NEW ORLEANS - In its best years, Fair Grounds Race Course grew its simulcast signal through the presentation of big, bettable fields, and opening day of the 2006-2007 meet harks back to that era, with 103 horses entered on Saturday for Thursday's opening-day program.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The Tin Man was kept out of the Breeders' Cup Turf because his trainer, Richard Mandella, was not satisfied with the way he was training, and weeks later, things have not improved. So, on Saturday at Hollywood Park, Mandella said The Tin Man would skip Friday's Grade 1, $400,000 Citation Handicap and instead get an extended vacation.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - A jockeys' room altercation prior to the running of the fourth race at Woodbine on Nov. 11 has resulted in lengthy suspensions for riders Patrick Husbands and Constant Montpellier.
On Saturday, Husbands was fined $5,000 and suspended 60 calendar days for hitting Montpellier with his helmet during the incident.
"He used his helmet as a weapon, attacking another rider," said Richard Grubb, senior steward for the Ontario Racing Commission here at Woodbine.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainers Reade Baker and Mark Casse are in the thick of the chase for all of the top trainer categories here at Woodbine, with number of winners, money won, and stakes wins all up for grabs during the final weeks of the meeting.
On Sunday, Baker and Casse will account for half of the 10-horse field in the $125,000 Glorious Song, a seven-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies that shares top billing with the Kennedy Road Stakes.
Bear Bullet Too, Bear Now, and Lady Digby form the Baker triumvirate, while Casse will counter with Sealy Hill and Sprung.
The $40,000 To Much Coffee Stakes, for older Indiana-breds at 1 1/16 miles at Hoosier Park, attracted a full field of 12. But the race really boils down to one horse: Mr. Mink.
One of the more prolific statebreds of recent years, Mr. Mink is out to make amends for a second-place finish in the 2005 To Much Coffee. The speedy gelding was favored last year and built up an eight-length lead down the backside, but he was caught in the final furlong by Pass Rush, a graded stakes winner.
Dance Fee boasts the best last-race Beyer Speed Figure among the seven fillies and mares in the closing-day feature at Delaware Park. But those looking to find a reason to play against Dance Fee, the probable favorite, in Sunday's $54,000 Justakiss Stakes at 1 1/16 miles have plenty of evidence to support their opinion.
Veteran race-caller Larry Collmus has been named the track announcer for the 2007 Gulfstream meeting. Collmus replaces Vic Stauffer, who had held the post for the last six years.
The 2007 Gulfstream meet opens on Jan. 3.
Collmus, 40, was only 18 when he got a job as backup announcer in his native Maryland. His first full-time assignment came two years later at Birmingham Racecourse in Alabama. Collmus has been the regular announcer at Suffolk Downs since 1992, at Monmouth Park since 1994, and he has also called the last two winter meets at Aqueduct.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Between them, they have accounted for such major stakes as the Grade 2 Commonwealth Breeders' Cup and the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes. But when Clock Stopper and Private Vow oppose four others in the Sunday feature at Churchill Downs, it will be after layoffs of notable durations, so the trainers of both are approaching the seven-furlong $61,000 allowance with cautious optimism.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The brilliantly fast Jump On In will be favored to stabilize the 2-year-old filly division, and restore her reputation, in the $100,000 Moccasin Stakes on Sunday at Hollywood Park.
Eight entered the seven-furlong stakes, and if front-runner Jump On In is not the surest winner on the card, she is the one to catch. Trained by John Sadler, Jump On In won her Aug. 6 debut with a soaring 98 Beyer Figure, then bombed one month later in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante.