Several horses being considered for the Grade 1 Pacific Classic on Aug. 21 at Del Mar may instead run in stakes in the Mid-Atlantic.
Ginobili, winner of an allowance race at a mile by 9 3/4 lengths on July 17, is likely to run in the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic, an $800,000 race on Aug. 27.
Nick Cosato, who directs the Slam Dunk Racing partnership that co-owns Ginobili, said the other possible spots for Ginobili are the Pacific Classic or the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes on Aug. 28 at Del Mar.
Santa Anita is raising purses for overnight races and some stakes for its 2021-22 winter-spring meeting, which begins Dec. 26, the second time in less than a year the track has increased prize money.
According to a statement released Monday, maiden special weight races will be worth $67,000, an increase of $6,000 from the corresponding meeting earlier this year and $12,000 from the 2019-20 season. A first-condition allowance race will be worth $69,000, compared to $57,000 in the winter of 2019-20 and $63,000 last year.
Kentucky Downs will increase its overnight purses for its September meet by 8 percent after a strong showing for its casino over the past year, the track announced on Monday.
Kentucky Downs, which will run six all-turf racing days from Sept. 5-12, will now distribute an average of $876,000 a day in overnight races for Kentucky-bred horses, with maiden special weight races worth $135,000 and first-level allowance races worth $145,800, the track said. Second-level allowances will be worth $156,600.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Mandaloun, among the leaders of the 3-year-old division, will most likely miss the major races the remainder of the year and will have an early 2022 target of the $20 million Saudi Cup in February, his connections said Monday.
Mandaloun has a sore right hind foot, and though the X-rays are clean, the horse will likely get six weeks off. Garrett O’Rourke, the racing manager of Juddmonte Farms, which owns Mandaloun said, “The family really wants to target the Saudi Cup.”
DEL MAR, Calif. - From the early days of his career in Florida, way back in the spring, Pappacap displayed flashy works prior to a smart debut win for trainer Mark Casse and owners and breeders George and Karen Russell.
That foundation led to Pappacap’s victorious stakes debut in Saturday’s Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar, which Casse hopes will lead to greater success in Southern California over the next three months.
“We mapped the plan before we sent him out there,” Casse said Sunday morning. “Part one is done. Now there are more parts.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Rudy Rodriguez admitted he wasn’t surprised Bella Sofia was able to come out of the allowance ranks to win Saturday’s Grade 1 Test Stakes. He did admit he was pleasantly surprised the way she did it, in dominant fashion, by 4 1/4 widening lengths over a field that included a trio of last-out graded stakes winners in a performance for which the still lightly raced 3-year-old filly received a career-best 101 Beyer Speed Figure.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The first step in trainer Bill Mott’s plan to get War Like Goddess to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf went to perfection Saturday when the 4-year-old filly won the Grade 2 Glens Falls Handicap by 3 1/4 lengths.
The next step toward the Breeders’ Cup comes in the Grade 1, $600,000 Flower Bowl, to be run here Sept. 4.
War Like Goddess showed a powerful late turn of foot that carried her from 11 lengths back early on to a convincing victory in the Glens Falls without ever feeling the leather of Julien Leparoux’s whip.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - When Knicks Go returns to the Breeders’ Cup this November, it won’t be to seek a repeat victory in the $1 million Dirt Mile.
Knicks Go, by virtue of his powerful 4 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Whitney Stakes at Saratoga, earned a shot at stretching out to 1 1/4 miles in the $6 million Classic on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.
“He deserves that, so that would be the target,” trainer Brad Cox said Sunday morning. “How we get there, I don’t know.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Steve Asmussen’s vision of becoming Thoroughbred racing’s all-time winningest trainer in North America became reality Saturday afternoon when Stellar Tap, a debuting 2-year-old colt by Tapit, cruised to a 5 1/4-length victory in Saratoga’s fifth race.
The win was the 9,446th of Asmussen’s career, moving him ahead of Dale Baird whose record of 9,445 has been the standard since 2007 when Baird died in a car crash.
