SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Javier Castellano may not have been the first choice to ride some of the best horses to run in North America the last few years, but he has certainly been the right choice.
The path to the winner's circle aboard the likes of Ghostzapper, Bellamy Road, Pine Island, and Bernardini - whom Castellano will ride as a prohibitive favorite in Saturday's $1 million Travers - has been a lot less circuitous than the road Castellano took to get the mounts on those horses.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Wildcat Bettie B is coming off a Grade 1 victory, whereas Cherokee Jewel has never even run in a graded stakes race. But despite the obvious differences in the quality of their recent competition, they may wind up vying for the top prize in Thursday's Grade 3, $100,000 Victory Ride Stakes at Saratoga, a six-furlong dash that drew a highly competitive field of eight 3-year-old fillies.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Tom Albertrani has not won a race since Bernardini's tour-de-force victory in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy, but he still has reasons to smile.
One reason is that he's getting ready to run Bernardini again in Saturday's $1 million Travers at Saratoga. On Tuesday, Bernardini completed his preparations for this meet's showcase event by working five furlongs in 1:02.12 over Saratoga's main track.
DEL MAR, Calif. - When trainer Mike Mitchell went to the paddock for the sixth race on Aug. 11, he was scouting two horses as potential claims. Neither was named Gallardo. But it was Gallardo who caught his eye.
"He looked great," Mitchell said. "I had about 10 or 12 minutes to make a decision."
DEL MAR, Calif. - Campylobacter jejuni. It looks like what would print out if you smashed your fist on a keyboard. But those tongue-twisting words are the technical name for the bacteria that afflicted jockey Corey Nakatani two weeks ago, made him violently ill, and forced him to a hospital for five days of treatment.
When Chin High stunned the opening-day crowd at Keeneland in April by winning the Transylvania Stakes at 68-1, the temptation might well have been to label the victory a fluke.
Sure enough, in the 4 1/2 months that have elapsed, the 3-year-old has done nothing to prove his skeptics wrong. The colt has been soundly beaten in all four of his races since that head-scratching upset, although two of those losses came against the highly regarded Showing Up.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Foreverness, a graded stakes winner earlier this year, tops Thursday's optional claiming feature on the turf at Monmouth Park.
The 1 1/16-mile race, for third-level allowance horses or those entered for a $50,000 claiming price, attracted eight runners and two alternates, Trieste's Honor and El Provinciano, who will run only on the main track.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Happy Ticket wondered what was going on. She was alert and ready to race as she occupied the first stall in the paddock prior to the third race last Saturday at Louisiana Downs.
But the race was for Quarter Horses.
Happy Ticket was in the paddock to make a personal appearance. She is the second-richest Louisiana-bred of all-time, and was honored before the eight Thoroughbred stakes on the Louisiana Downs Champions Day card.
As a Grade 1 winner of $1.2 million, she is just $33,215 shy of surpassing Louisiana-bred leader Scott's Scoundrel.
AUBURN, Wash. - Flamethrowin-texan seemed to expend every ounce of his energy in his gallant victory in last Sunday's 71st Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs. He had to dig deep to fend off a prolonged challenge from Papi Chullo, all the while absorbing repeated bumps from that rival, to prevail by a neck in 1:34.40.
If Flamethrowintexan was drained by his effort, however, he has remarkable powers of recuperation.
