Form prevailed Friday at Fairplex Park, where odds-on favorite Sailors Sunset pummeled four rivals in the $61,570 Foothill Stakes on opening day of the 16-day Los Angeles County Fair race meet.
Sailors Sunset was the third winner on the card for jockey Martin Pedroza, who made it look easy. Sailors Sunset ($3.20) pressed the early pace set by Hollywood Hood, took command at the three-eighths pole, opened up through the far turn, and coasted to the wire in front by 11 1/4 lengths.
ELMONT, N.Y. - David Fawkes believes the tactics employed by fellow trainer Todd Pletcher, more so than the two turns, were responsible for the demise of Take D' Tour in last month's Go for Wand at Saratoga.
Fawkes, the trainer of , contends Pletcher used Pool Land as a rabbit to run with the speedy Take D' Tour early in order to set the race up for Spun Sugar, another Pletcher trainee, who indeed came from off the pace to win the Grade 1 Go for Wand by a nose over Balletto.
Woodbine's "big-race" surveillance program, which began with the June 25 Queen's Plate, has been significantly modified for next Sunday's Grade 1, $1 million Woodbine Mile.
For the Queen's Plate and the July 23 Northern Dancer, all prospective entrants were required to be on the grounds a minimum of 48 hours before the closing of entries, which were taken Thursday morning for the Sunday races. For the Woodbine Mile, participants will not have to be on the grounds until 11 a.m. on Friday.
POMONA, Calif. - Based on form established last year at Fairplex Park, the 5-year-old mare Allswellthatnswell would be easy to bet against in the $65,000 E.B. Johnston Stakes on Sunday at the Los Angeles County Fair.
Not so fast, warns owner-breeder Bud Johnston.
"She's a totally different mare than she was last year," Johnston said. "Running her long was a waste, because she would get rank and would run off. Now she's kinder, and she will rate."
CHICAGO - The Arlington-Washington Futurity and Arlington-Washington Lassie are among the oldest stakes at Arlington Park. Bill Thayer, the longtime Arlington executive, still keeps in his desk drawer an original program from 1965 Futurity Day: Buckpasser's name is circled.
Times change, though, and in recent years, the two best 2-year-old races of the Arlington season slid - the winners were decent, not memorable. But this year's models, especially the Lassie, seem like a blast from the past. Both races, one-turn miles, attracted large fields that seem loaded with runners.
POMONA, Calif. - The final Sunday of the Los Angeles County Fair will be special for trainer Ted West and his son Ted H. West. West Sr. is the 2006 inductee into the Fairplex Park Hall of Fame and will be honored in a ceremony Sept. 24, the same day the stable runs He's the Rage in the $125,000 Hinds Handicap.
"Cooperstown was my first choice," West joked, "but I gave up that idea when I was 18."
MIAMI - Stakes opportunities for filly and mare sprinters have been rare thus far at the Calder meet, which makes next Saturday's $100,000 U Can Do It Handicap a golden opportunity for the 11 horses nominated.
Aside from overnight stakes, the only added-money dirt sprints for females since the meet began in late April were the Grade 1 Princess Rooney Handicap and the Grade 3 Azalea Breeders' Cup for 3-year-old fillies. Prospective Saint finished second in the Princess Rooney, and Frolicing and A Sea Trippi finished third and fourth in the Azalea.
Julien Leparoux and Patrick Biancone keep breaking unwritten rules.
Leparoux, who loses his five-pound apprentice allowance on Sept. 25, has been performing at a level normally reserved for seasoned jockeys for months now. And Biancone, true to his French roots, is willing to occasionally buck American tradition, including running an unraced filly against males.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Bill Morey Jr. has always liked Bold Chieftain.
The 3-year-old colt ran third in the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby behind Cause to Believe in his fourth career start and ran third in his next start 6 1/2 months later, the $100,000 Real Good Deal at Del Mar.
While Bold Chieftain has enjoyed more success than his rivals, he faces a new challenge in Sunday's Golden Gate Fields feature, when he makes his turf debut in a one-mile allowance race.
