The Grade 1 Cigar Mile, which will have its purse restored to $750,000, highlights the Aqueduct fall stakes schedule, put out Monday by the New York Racing Association.
The 18-day Aqueduct fall meet runs from Nov. 5 through Dec. 5 and will include 26 stakes totaling $4.9 million in purses.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – While Belmont Stakes winner Essential Quality comes to Saratoga as the leader of the 3-year-old division, he will likely have a few new rivals to beat in order to leave here with that position.
Among the reasons Todd Pletcher will be inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame this summer is his success at Saratoga, where he has been leading trainer 14 times. Among the reasons for his success at Saratoga is his prowess in developing 2-year-olds for early success.
In nine of the last 11 years, Pletcher has won at least 11 races for 2-year-olds at Saratoga, and it’s hard to hold last year’s 4-for-31 performance against him given the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on getting horses ready.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Rusty Arnold first came to Saratoga in 1982, and has been a regular participant since 1987. In 2019, he had one of his more memorable meets when he won the inaugural Saratoga Oaks with Concrete Rose and the Grade 3 Troy with Leinster.
Last year, he and his wife, Sarah, who works as an assistant, skipped Saratoga owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Arnolds, like several Kentucky-based horse people, are excited to be back for this year’s meet, which begins Thursday.
The Louisiana Cup Day card of six stakes for Louisiana-breds will return to Louisiana Downs on Aug. 21 after a collective effort among the Bossier City, La., track, the Louisiana Thoroughbred Breeders Association, and the Louisiana Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.
Louisiana Downs announced the return of the card Monday.
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While Coolmore took the final Grade 1 races at the Belmont meet on Saturday, its international rival, Godolphin Racing, will look to take the first Grade 1 of the Saratoga season with Althiqa and Summer Romance in Saturday’s $500,000 Diana Stakes.
Althiqa beat Summer Romance by three-quarters of a length when they ran 1-2 in the Grade 1 Just a Game going a mile at Belmont Park on June 5. Summer Romance beat Althiqa when they finished 1-3 in the Group 2 Balanchine at Meydan in February. That race was at 1 1/8 miles, the distance of the Diana.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Bolshoi Ballet and Santa Barbara, the two Coolmore-owned horses that won Saturday’s Belmont Derby and Oaks, respectively, emerged from their efforts “like they never had races,” according to assistant trainer T.J. Comerford. While they shipped back to trainer Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle yard in Ireland on Sunday night, it is likely they will return to the U.S. at some point, with the year-end goals being the Breeders’ Cup.
Mean Mary, one of the leading older female turf-route horses, won’t run in the United Nations Stakes next Saturday. Trainer Graham Motion said several weeks ago he would consider the mare for the U.N., and she was nominated to the race, but Motion on Friday said her connections would take a pass and instead aim for the Glens Falls, a 1 1/2-mile turf stakes on Aug. 7 at Saratoga, or point for the Beverly D. at 1 3/16 miles the next Saturday at Arlington.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Art Collector, the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes and Ellis Park Derby winner for trainer Tom Drury, is now in the barn of Bill Mott and is targeting the $120,000 Alydar Stakes on Aug. 6 at Saratoga.
On Thursday, Art Collector worked a half-mile in 49.66 seconds over a Saratoga training track labeled wet fast.
“He was well on the bridle, he traveled well,” Mott said. “We just wanted to get him started and see.”
