FORT ERIE, Ontario - The $30,000 Turf Writers Cup on Saturday will be a one-horse race, said trainer Daryl Ezra in a trash-talking mode.
"My horse won't get beat," said Ezra of Grab the Cat, a likely odds-on favorite in the mile and 70-yard contest for fillies and mares.
"Fast track, sloppy track - it doesn't matter. There's nothing in there better than me. She can go to the front or she can come off the pace."
MIAMI - Yesbyjimminy has never raced beyond six furlongs and will have to concede weight to all nine of his rivals in Saturday's $150,000 Foolish Pleasure Breeders' Cup. But those factors are not likely to keep the betting public from making the undefeated juvenile the solid favorite in the one mile and 70-yard Foolish Pleasure, which highlights Calder's 13-race Festival of the Sun Preview card.
Ashkal Way, Dreadnaught, and Interpatation, who finished within a length of each other as the top three horses in last month's Grade 2 Bernard Baruch Handicap at Saratoga, are poised for a rematch in Saturday's $200,000 John Schapiro Memorial Breeders' Cup Handicap at Laurel Park.
Like the Baruch on Aug. 26, the Schapiro will be contested at 1 1/8 miles on turf.
ALBANY, Calif. - Saturday's $75,000 Pacific Heights at Golden Gate Fields has the look of a match race.
Somethinaboutlaura and Jill's Sky both have speed and quality. While Saturday's one-mile turf test may be a Cal Cup prep for both, neither Somethinaboutlaura's trainer, Jerry Hollendorfer, nor Jill's Sky's trainer, Jenine Sahadi, are looking past the race, which drew seven entrants. Somethinaboutlaura may be a bit easier to rate, which could give her the edge.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - There's been a changing of the guard on the backstretch at Woodbine.
John Burness, owner of Colebrook Farm, has ended his association with trainer Frank Passero and hired trainer Phil England to run his stable here at Woodbine.
England had been the private trainer for the Molinaro Farm of Gino Molinaro, who has gone back to one of his former trainers, Vito Armata.
Burness has 32 stalls here and plenty of horses at his Colebrook Farm and training center in Uxbridge, Ontario.
When King of the Roxy ran in last month's Saratoga Special, he was making the always difficult jump from maiden to graded stakes company and had to face the more seasoned stakes winner Chace City. Making his first start for Todd Pletcher, King of the Roxy ran a respectable race and finished second, beaten three-quarters of a length.
When King of the Roxy runs in Saturday's Grade 2, $250,000 Futurity Stakes at Belmont Park, he will have the experience edge over several good-looking debut winners trying to make the jump into graded stakes competition.
During his 13 years as an assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, Ralph Nicks saw a virtually limitless variety of situations and circumstances. And now that Nicks has been on his own for nearly three years, he is able to draw on those experiences when making the calls for his own stable.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Horses shipping in from Emerald Downs will be front and center in this weekend's important stakes at Hastings, including Raise the Bluff, who looks live in the Grade 3, $250,000 British Columbia Derby on Sunday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Keeneland Racecourse formally unveiled its new retro look on Thursday following a summer-long renovation project that reconfigured the track's racing oval, replaced the main dirt track with a synthetic surface, and upgraded the track's telecommunications and broadcast technology to the state-of-the-art.
A year after its inaugural meet, Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M., is back with a richer stakes schedule, an expanded simulcast network, more slot machines, and a new director of racing. The track's 49-day run of Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing starts Saturday and will continue through Dec. 12.
Zia is a $50 million racino with a one-mile track, situated in the southeastern portion of the state, just miles from the border of west Texas. R.D. Hubbard is the majority owner of Zia, as well as Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico.