Trainer Mark Casse will take two shots at the $125,000 La Lorgnette Stakes at Woodbine on Saturday, when he runs Kimchi and Top Notch Lady. The La Lorgnette is run at 1 1/16 miles and will have a field of 12 3-year-old fillies.
No, the Saturday feature at Hawthorne Race Course is not a stakes, but with the number of horses entered it is almost like two races bundled into one. A total of 14 horses went into the featured eighth, a third-level allowance race with a $40,000 claiming option; 12 made the body of the race, with two more stuck on the also-eligible list.
Three horses coming out of graded stakes at Saratoga figure prominently in the $100,000 Larry Riviello President's Cup at Philadelphia Park.
Although the 1 1/8-mile Riviello has been held since 2001, this is the first time it will be contested on turf. It essentially replaces the Greenwood Turf Cup, a 1 1/2-mile race last run in 2004, on the track's stakes schedule.
Trainer Doris Harwood will shoot for her 14th 2-year-old win at the Emerald Downs meeting Saturday, when she sends out Pine Street Boy in the feature, a six-furlong test for $12,500 claimers. The race has drawn a field of six juveniles.
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.
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.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Bright Abundance is winless in five starts since upsetting last year's Noble Damsel Handicap here at odds of 6-1. She could just as easily be bringing a three-race winning streak into Saturday's Grade 3, $150,000 Noble Damsel, scheduled for one mile over Belmont Park's Widener turf course.
MIAMI - Post Invader left town this summer as the leader of Florida's 2-year-old filly division after opening her career with a pair of one-sided victories. She returns home Saturday trying to maintain that status as the favorite against seven rivals in Calder's $150,000 Brave Raj Stakes Breeders' Cup Stakes.
The mile and 70-yard Brave Raj is one of four stakes on Calder's Festival of the Sun Preview program, along with the $150,000 Foolish Pleasure and the $100,000 Needles and $100,000 Judy's Red Shoes stakes, both of which are scheduled for the turf.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Hey Hey Renee looks to complete a perfect meet in Saturday's Matron Breeders' Cup for fillies and mares here at Assiniboia Downs.
The 1 1/8-mile Matron Breeders' Cup carries a guaranteed purse of $40,000 with an additional $25,000 for the field's Breeders' Cup-eligible horses - Empress Pegasus, Fancy Tango, Just Fine, Kathern's Cat, and Vicar's Daughter.
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.