VANCOUVER, British Columbia - There are seven horses entered in the Grade 3, $125,000 added B.C. Premiers at Hastings on Sunday, but the race really shapes up as a heavyweight match between True Metropolitan and Spaghetti Mouse.
With four dominating stakes wins in Alberta, True Metropolitan has wrapped up provincial honors. With a win over Spaghetti Mouse in the 1o3/8-mile Premiers, True Metropolitan would end up as the top handicap horse in British Columbia as well.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Since the portable rail has been moved out 24 feet, speed has become a hot commodity on the Belmont Park turf courses. That fact, and her rail post position, should benefit in Sunday's Grade 3, $100,000 Athenia Handicap.
Pommes Frites, one of two entrants for trainer Bill Mott, heads an eight-horse field entered in the Athenia, scheduled for 1 1/16 miles over Belmont's inner turf. Mott has also entered Thetactics Ofdance.
For an ungraded race, the $150,000 Bryan Station Stakes came up a little salty, horsemen might say. Not only did it attract the winners of the Grade 2 American Derby (Union Avenue) and the Grade 3 Arlington Classic (Kingship), it also attracted a winner of five straight races in New York (Gimme Credit) and a speedy colt who ran second behind Showing Up in the $1 million Colonial Turf Cup (Kip Deville).
Debut winners Mike Fox and Leonnatus Anteas both move to the turf for their second start Sunday to contest the $250,000 Cup and Saucer Stakes at Woodbine.
Mike Fox, a son of popular young sire Giant's Causeway, is the first foal from Alexis, who won the Grade 3 Dance Smartly Handicap here on the grass in 2001. Mike Fox won his debut in a mile and 70-yard maiden special on Polytrack Sept. 3. He dueled through moderate fractions and scored by a half-length over Angel of the House and Skip Code, who subsequently won his maiden and Monday's Grade 3 Grey BC Cup Stakes.
The move to double the minimum purses for open stakes at the Portland Meadows meeting from $10,000 to $20,000 is paying dividends.
The larger purse for Sunday's six-furlong Diane Kem Handicap convinced the connections of several fillies and mares who raced at Emerald Downs to extend their campaigns for at least one more race. Chief among the Emerald invaders is Star Amethyst, the highweight and probable favorite for the Kem.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - In a field packed with stakes-proven 3-year-olds, a colt making his stakes debut cruised to victory Friday in the $200,000 Perryville Stakes at Keeneland. Midnight Lute captured the Grade 3 race in frighteningly easy fashion, leaving his trainer, Bob Baffert, to wonder what might lay ahead.
"I don't know what I'm going to do next with this horse," said Baffert. "All I know is we're going to give him a lot of love."
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Next Sunday's $2 million Canadian International and $1 million E.P. Taylor Stakes are beginning to take shape, and early indications are that there will be decent-sized fields for both Grade 1 turf races here at Woodbine.
The Canadian International, a 1o1/2-mile race for 3-year-olds and upward, and the E.P. Taylor, a 1 1/4-mile race for fillies and mares, will be joined on the Oct. 22 card by the Grade 2, $500,000 Nearctic, a six-furlong turf race for 3-year-olds and upward.
Trainer Art Sherman was a little surprised to win a 15-way shake for Make Mine Vodka at Del Mar. Some trainers had put in multiple claims for the horse in the name of different owners, according to Sherman,.
"I was the only single in there. That was just crazy," he said. "I took it as a good omen when we won the shake."
Make Mine Vodka won his third straight when Sherman claimed him on July 29. He was claimed from each victory.
ALBANY, Calif. - Golden Gate Fields winds up its fall meeting Sunday with a solid, competitive card from top-to-bottom.
Eight fillies and mares meet in the closing-day feature, a $50,000 optional claimer at six furlongs.
Trainer Steve Specht sends out an uncoupled entry that could prove quite tough. Kiss Kiss Kiss and the recently re-claimed Princess Lianna have a combined record of 8 wins, 5 seconds and 3 thirds from 22 starts here.
Maggi Moss, the leading owner in New York and in the country in terms of wins, has fired Gary Contessa, the winningest trainer in New York this year, after a nine-year working relationship.
Moss has split the horses she had with Contessa between trainers Robert Klesaris and Bruce Levine. Moss said she gave both trainers five horses each. Contessa said it was four each.
Moss, who ranks first nationally in wins (167) and fifth in earnings ($3,246,875), has won 33 races on this circuit in 2006. Moss said she had some concerns with Contessa's stable getting too large.
