Short fields abound in much of the American racing landscape, the same narrow equine population taking turns beating each other at race meets lacking the stock to support a vibrant product.
And then there is Monday’s opening day card at the 2021 Colonial Downs meeting.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Weyburn, the Grade 3 Gotham winner and runner-up to Mandaloun in the Pegasus Stakes on June 13 at Monmouth, worked five furlongs in 1:00.83 on Friday morning over the Saratoga main track, preparing for a start in the Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes here July 31.
Working by himself, Weyburn went in splits of 12.65 seconds, 24.33, 35.43, and finished in 25.40 after hanging on his left lead until deep stretch.
SARATOGA SPRINGS N.Y, – Vequist, who used her easy victory in the Grade 1 Spinaway here last summer to help her become the juvenile filly champion, is back on the local scene prepping for what trainer Butch Reid Jr. hopes will be a successful second half to her 3-year-old campaign.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Maxfield, among the leaders of the older male dirt division, stepped up preparations for a scheduled start in the Grade 1, $1 million Whitney Stakes here on Aug. 7 by working four furlongs in 49.03 seconds on Friday morning over the Oklahoma training track.
It took trainer Kent Sweezey 81 starts and the entire Monmouth season during 2020 to notch seven wins. This year, Sweezey has dredged the same number of winners out of just 19 starters. Sweezey, before racing on Friday, sat sixth in the Monmouth trainer standings despite running, at most, roughly half the number of horses as any of the trainers with more winners at this meet.
And any astute bettor who latched onto Team Sweezey early this Monmouth season has a swollen bankroll: Sweezey’s 2021 Monmouth ROI is bonkers, $7.73.
In 2017, trainer Phil D’Amato won a personal-best six stakes during the Del Mar summer meeting in races ranging from main track sprints to turf marathons.
D’Amato won two stakes at Del Mar last summer, a figure he could equal this summer as quickly as next weekend. Sunday, D’Amato starts Red King in the Grade 3 Cougar II Handicap at 1 1/2 miles on dirt.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The Woodbine meet is now just over a month old, and the road to the 162nd running of the $1 million Queen’s Plate on Aug. 22 is heating up. Second nomination payments for the Queen’s Plate were due June 30, and 45 Canadian-bred 3-year-olds remain eligible for the first jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown over 1 1/4 miles on Tapeta.
Trainer Al Stall Jr. said Carribean Caper probably will go next in the $100,000 Aubudon Oaks after the 3-year-old Speightstown filly stayed unbeaten with another easy allowance victory at Ellis last Saturday.
Carribean Caper, owned by the Columbine Stable of Andrea Pollack, now has won her three starts by a combined 17 lengths.
Letruska, the undisputed leader of the national filly-mare division through the first half of 2021 and the top candidate for the Nov. 6 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar, has been thriving in the relative quiet of Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., while trainer Fausto Gutierrez ponders her next start.
A rich Sunday card featuring a new overnight stakes serves as further reminders that this isn’t your dad’s Ellis Park.
Whereas low-level claimers competing for paltry purses had been the norm for many years since Ellis was founded in 1922, a much classier brand of racing has evolved in recent times at the western Kentucky track. An eight-race Sunday program anchored by the first running of the $60,000 Pea Patch, along with five more races with purses exceeding $50,000 (three allowances and two maiden-specials), underscores the track’s ongoing transformation.
