Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., is adding December dates to its calendar as part of an expanded 66-date meet for this coming season, the track announced Monday. Oaklawn is scheduled to open on Dec. 3 and race through May 8, 2022.
The meet will be conducted on a Friday-through-Sunday basis most weeks, with a special Monday card to be held for Presidents Day on Feb. 21. There will be no racing from Dec. 24-26 in observance of Christmas and on April 17 in observance of Easter.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The 20-cent Rainbow pick six paid $4,649 to 555 ticketholders at Santa Anita on Sunday on a program with a mandatory payout promotion.
The pool began with a carryover of $411,484 from Saturday. Bettors added $2,838,921 on Sunday.
The pick six was conducted on the fourth through ninth races. The winners were V Bucks ($17.20), Cinnte Winnte ($4), Harpers Gallop ($19), Whatmakessammyrun ($3.60), Box of Chocolates ($7.20), and Freedom Flyer ($10).
Hit the Road, briefly sidelined by a muscle strain earlier this spring, has resumed training for an expected start at the Del Mar summer meeting.
Hit the Road won the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita on March 6 and was fifth in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile at Keeneland on April 9. Trainer Dan Blacker said Sunday that Hit the Road has progressed in recent weeks for a return to racing as early as next month.
“We’ll get back on the work tab soon,” Blacker said.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The five-time stakes winner Fashionably Fast worked a half-mile in 47.80 seconds at Santa Anita on Sunday in advance of a scheduled start in the $100,000 Thor’s Echo Stakes for California-breds at six furlongs on Saturday.
A 6-year-old gelding, Fashionably Fast won the Tiznow Stakes for statebreds at a mile in February and has been third in his last two starts, both against open company – the Santana Mile on March 28 and an allowance race on April 24.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Medina Spirit has resumed galloping at Santa Anita for a summertime comeback following a controversial win in the Kentucky Derby on May 1 and a third-place finish in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on May 15.
Medina Spirit’s win in the Kentucky Derby has been the focus of international news after the presence of the therapeutic medication betamethasone was found in a post-race test. Medina Spirit could be disqualified from the Kentucky Derby win, pending a hearing.
Veteran jockey Joe Bravo is switching coasts this summer, leaving his longtime base at Monmouth Park in New Jersey for Southern California.
Bravo said Sunday that he will begin riding in California at Santa Anita from June 18-20 and will ride the Del Mar summer meeting from July 16 to Sept. 6.
“I’ll go from one beach to another,” Bravo said.
Bravo, 49, said his decision was largely based on new regulations at Monmouth Park that restrict jockeys from using the whip in races. Bravo has been the leading rider at Monmouth Park 13 times.
Charlie Appleby didn’t get to run Rebel’s Romance in the Belmont Stakes, but the other three runners he shipped here at the beginning of May all ran super in their races on Saturday.
Althiqa and Summer Romance finished first and second in the Grade 1 Just a Game with the former rallying along the inside of the latter to win the one-mile turf race for females by three-quarters of a length.
“I watched the replay, that was something,” said Sophie Chretien, who traveled with the Appleby runners to New York. “That was super class.”
ELMONT, N.Y. - Jockey Kendrick Carmouche is expected to be out 8 to 10 weeks after breaking his right ankle in an incident leaving the starting gate in Saturday’s last race at Belmont Park.
Carmouche, who broke his right leg in a spill at Kentucky Downs in 2018, was scheduled to fly to Tennessee on Sunday afternoon and undergo surgery on Monday morning. The surgery will be performed by Dr. Philip Kregor, who operated on Carmouche in 2018.
Total betting on the Belmont Stakes on Saturday afternoon was $60.46 million, a 13.6 percent increase over handle the last time the race was held in its traditional place on the Triple Crown calendar in 2019, according to the New York Racing Association.
