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.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Blackies Cuttie will be out of action for three to four months after suffering a hairline stress fracture of her cannon bone, according to trainer Ben Root.
Blackies Cuttie, an impressive winner of her first two starts, finished third at 1-10 odds in the Janet Wineberg Stakes for Oregon-bred 2-year-old fillies on Nov. 5. She initially seemed to come out of the race without injury, but a second set of X-rays revealed the barely perceptible fracture.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Michael Matz is mulling several options for Sangrita, his stakes-winning homebred filly, with the Grade 2, $150,000 Top Flight Handicap at Aqueduct a leading contender.
The one-mile Top Flight on Friday is one of the six stakes over four consecutive days at the Big A.
"I think she's going that way, but I'm just not sure," Matz said of the Top Flight. "I want to take a look at everything."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. The biggest disappointment of last year's Hollywood Park fall meeting was the suspension of grass racing and, with it, the stakes-filled turf festival over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Thankfully, grass racing is back, and on Friday anticipation began to build for next weekend's turf festival when Silent Name, one of the leading candidates for the Grade 1, $400,000 Citation Handicap on Nov. 24, worked six furlongs in 1:12.40 over the Cushion Track surface with exercise rider Felipe Guerrero.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Trainer Michael Lenzini was happy when he saw a five-furlong turf race available for Athlete at Bay Meadows on Sunday.
He was even happier when entries were drawn for the $62,500 optional claimer.
Athlete has five rivals, each with one thing in common: they all want to be on the lead.
Athlete is content to sit back early and will probably be the trailer early before unleashing his late kick. He's used that style with good success when sprinting on the turf, with two wins, two seconds and a third in eight tries.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - New ground will be broken here next weekend when a woman will become the leading trainer at Hastings for the first time in this track's 117-year history.
Heading into the final four days of the meet, Terry Clyde, with 47 wins, holds a four-win lead over Barbara Heads. Clyde is a heavy favorite to win the title, although there is still an outside chance Heads could catch her.
Both Clyde and Heads are aware of the significance of winning the title, but they are taking it in stride.
Laurel Park will run the same 19 stakes as last year during its winter meet that begins Jan. 1.
As usual, the showcase events will be a pair of Grade 2, seven-furlong sprints on President's Day weekend - the Barbara Fritchie Breeders' Cup Handicap for fillies and mares on Saturday, Feb. 17, and the General George BC Handicap for older males two days later. Both stakes carry the same $300,000 as last year.
The remaining 17 stakes received across-the-board $15,000 purse increases, which includes bonus money from the Maryland Million Ltd. and Maryland-bred fund.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The abrupt shift to the inner track at Aqueduct won't hurt Spooky Mulder's chances Sunday in the featured $49,000 allowance optional claimer.
When the Thursday forecast called for heavy showers, the Big A moved the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday cards to the inner strip as a precaution to preserve the weather-battered main track.
Conditions permitting, main-track racing returns on Wednesday.
In the interlude, Spooky Mulder winds up on the winterized strip where he has a record of 4-2-0 in 8 starts.
MIAMI - Anybody looking to get an early jump on handicapping the $50,000 King George's Wrong Way II Stakes on next Saturday's Extreme Day program should have been at Calder during training hours on Friday morning when three potential starters for the race turned in recorded workouts going clockwise over the turf course.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Trainer John Kimmel said Friday that Premium Tap "is in the 50-50 range" to ship from New York for the Clark Handicap, the Grade 1 race that helps close out the Churchill Downs fall meet with its 132nd running Friday.
Premium Tap finished third behind Invasor and Bernardini in the Nov. 4 Breeders' Cup Classic and thus figures as a logical favorite in the $500,000 Clark. Kimmel said the colt was scheduled to breeze Saturday at Belmont Park, "and we'll probably make a decision by Monday on whether or not we'll be coming."