ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Gold Strike makes her highly anticipated seasonal debut against a tough group of fillies and mares Sunday at Woodbine in the Grade 3, $150,000 Hendrie Stakes.
Gold Strike won the Sovereign Award for last year's champion 3-year-old, and was third in the voting for Canadian Horse of the Year. She captured the Grade 3 Selene Stakes and the $502,000 Woodbine Oaks, before finishing a valiant third in the Queen's Plate.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - If Basket of Dreams, who is making her 2006 debut, runs as well as she did in her initial start of 2005, she could be the one in the 6 1/2-furlong Hastings feature Sunday. That's a big if, however, and the $20,000 claiming race, for fillies and mares who haven't won three races, appears to be a tough race to take a firm stand on.
What makes the race, the seventh on the card, so puzzling is that all of the eight horses entered are coming off uninspiring performances. In fact none of them finished better than fifth in their last start.
CALGARY, Alberta - Sunday's featured optional $40,000 claimer at six furlongs is loaded with early speed, with Love's Conquest, Smooth Cruiser, and Hot Talk expected to contest the early lead here at Stampede Park.
The pace scenario favors Catalone, trained by Tom Dewey, who runs his best races from just off the lead and figures to get an ideal trip. Catalone, a 6-year-old gelding, comes off a good seasonal bow on April 26, closing well on a track that favored speed. He was beaten just a length by Sparhawk in the quick time of 1:10.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Five of the six 3-year-olds in Sunday's Bay Meadows feature, a $40,000 starter allowance race at 1 1/16 miles on the turf, come off their turf debuts.
The field includes the first-place finisher and the runner-up from a similar race April 22 at Golden Gate Fields. Both were taken down in a rare double disqualification in which Home Port was disqualified from the win and placed second and runner-up More Bertrando disqualified to fifth in separate incidents.
Still, both runners earned career-best Beyer Speed Figures in the race, their first on turf.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Trainer Cody Autrey came into the Lone Star Park meet with a game plan and has executed it to perfection. He has won at a rate of better than 50 percent for much of the first month of the 66-date season, and through Thursday night his 22 wins in 21 days of racing this meet have placed him in a tie atop the trainer standings with perennial leader Steve Asmussen.
"We don't expect to keep up with Steve, but we're going to try as long as we can," said Autrey.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Paul Nielsen is back at Woodbine, following a winter at Payson Park and a stopover in Keeneland.
Nielsen's campaign here will begin in earnest on Sunday, when he sends out La Trillium in the Grade 3, 6 1/2-furlong Hendrie for fillies and mares.
"She's in good shape. I'm pretty happy with her," said Nielsen, who trains La Trillium for Jasmine Stable.
"It's a tough spot, but I don't think she's totally over her head. I think the 6 1/2 furlongs will help her, and an off track would help her."
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - It's probably no coincidence that when Justin Stein shipped his tack to Woodbine this year, the jockey colony at Hastings became a much deeper and competitive group. After all, Stein won 148 races and almost $2.5 million here last year and with him out of the picture, that's a lot of money up for grabs.
AUBURN, Wash. - Sunday's six-furlong Hastings Park Handicap for fillies and mares at Emerald Downs will feature four of the track's past champions.
The local champs are A Classic Life, who was named the track's top 2-year-old filly in 2005; Queenledo, last year's best 3-year-old filly; Karis Makaw, the top older filly or mare at last year's stand; and Marva Jean, who was honored as Emerald's best sprinter in 2005.
After just missing in a second-level optional claimer at Oaklawn in her last start, Picata catches the same conditions again in Sunday's featured eighth race and should rule as the one to beat. A 4-year-old Rizzi filly, Picata has come to hand for trainer Gary Thomas recently, as she scored a convincing first-level optional win two starts back on April 7. She has developed a solid late kick, and there appears to be an ample amount early pace in Sunday's six-furlong headliner to set the stage for her late run. Thomas has given Donnie Meche the return call.
