ARCADIA, Calif. - Since he returned from a 15-month layoff earlier this year, Backus has been a different horse for trainer Bob Baffert.
Two starts have resulted in two wins - a maiden claimer for sprinters at Hollywood Park in June and an optional claimer over a mile at Del Mar on Sept. 3. Before his return, Backus lost his first seven starts.
Since trainer Aidan O'Brien already knows what Dylan Thomas can do on the turf, it made no sense to him to ship Dylan Thomas halfway around the world to run in another grass race.
By sending Dylan Thomas to Belmont Park for Saturday's $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup, O'Brien will find out not only if Dylan Thomas can handle the dirt, but if he can handle it against Bernardini, North America's premier dirt runner. If Dylan Thomas can handle this assignment, O'Brien may have a candidate for the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic next month at Churchill Downs.
For more than a year now, it has been rather easy for a racing fan who didn't feel like betting on Polytrack races to turn his back on them. While the simulcast signals from Turfway Park and Woodbine - the first two tracks to conduct racing over Polytrack - are sufficiently popular, they hardly compare with the widespread appeal of Keeneland.
Shaun Bridgmohan began his riding career at Calder following his graduation from high school during the summer of 1997, won an Eclipse Award as the top apprentice in the country the following season, and has since gone on to have a successful career as a journeyman that has included riding titles at Aqueduct in 2002 and Arlington Park in 2005. He also rode Private Vow for trainer Steve Asmussen in this year's Kentucky Derby.
With an easy win over older horses last weekend at Santa Anita, the 3-year-old turf filly Wait a While has been ordained the best thing since sliced bread. But squirreled away at Hawthorne Race Course is another 3-year-old filly who is unbeaten on grass, Vacare, who will take her show on the road this weekend for a start in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on Oct. 14 at Keeneland.
Trainer Chris Block said Vacare would ship to Keeneland by van Saturday in order to breeze over the turf course there Monday and make final preparations for her race next Saturday.
There is an interesting dichotomy of contenders in Friday's Grade 3, $400,000 Indiana Breeders' Cup Oaks at Hoosier Park. One group of fillies have come to the fore over the past several months and hope to build on their new-found success. The other group, which includes some nationally recognizable names, are looking to rebound from sub-par efforts that have tarnished their reputations, if only temporarily.
High Cotton is the most accomplished of the three horses Todd Pletcher is considering running in the Pegasus.
Trainer Todd Pletcher holds a strong hand with three entrants in the Grade 3, $250,000 Pegasus Stakes for 3-year-olds Friday night at the Meadowlands Racetrack. Pletcher would not commit to running all three - High Cotton, Fairbanks, and Roman Dynasty - in the 1 1/8-mile race.
"I'm not sure exactly how many of them we're going to run," Pletcher said. "All three are doing really well. The only minus to this is running all three in the same race."
Amid all the changes at Keeneland - the reconfigured main track with a Polytrack surface and a new toteboard, to name two - there will be one constant there this fall. That would be the presence of 10-year-old Rochester, who is entered in Friday's Sycamore Breeders' Cup Stakes for the sixth year in a row.
A three-time winner of the race - in 2001, 2002, and 2005 - he figures to start at odds of around 8-1 when matched against 10 opponents in the Sycamore, a Grade 3, $150,000 turf race going 1 1/2 miles.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - European import Scarlett's Pride adds some intrigue to Friday's featured fourth race at Woodbine, an $80,000 optional claimer at six furlongs on the grass.
Scarlett's Pride, a 3-year-old by of 1996 Canadian International winner Singspiel, won her maiden second time out in June of 2005 in France. She subsequently finished fifth competing against males in the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin, but could manage only a seventh-place finish against her own sex in a Group 3 event in August of 2005.