LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In the more well-known cases of horses shipping from overseas to run in the Kentucky Derby, standard procedure has been to arrive a week or two before the race. And having seen the rather disappointing results, Eoghan O'Neill is trying something different.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Wild Fit might not get the distance, but she will be a fresh filly when she makes her next start May 5 in the Kentucky Oaks. Trainer Patrick Biancone said Tuesday that Wild Fit will forgo a final prep race and go straight to the Oaks.
The 54-day interval between starts is of less concern than the 1 1/8-mile distance. Favored in all three of her two-turn races, Wild Fit is 0 for 3 in them, including her most recent start, March 12, when she finished a distant third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks at 1 1/16 miles.
Spooky Mulder has not finished off the board outside of a stakes in almost 13 months, a span of 13 outings. He will get the opportunity to add to that streak in Thursday's Aqueduct feature, a third-level allowance event at six furlongs carrying an optional claiming price of $75,000.
Trainer Scott Lake, a master at the claiming game, has made Spooky Mulder eligible for the race by entering him for the required claiming price.
Trainer Larry Jones has two fillies for the ninth race on Thursday at Oaklawn Park. Repeat - Larry Jones has two fillies.
It was just one week ago that Larry Jones had - note the number again - two 3-year-old fillies in the Oaklawn feature. Shytoe Lafeet finished last of seven at 5-2, while Gasia won the race going away at odds of 13-1.
"We thought [Gasia] might beat her that day," Jones conceded.
Shytoe Lafeet was the shorter price because she had just finished a close second at the class level, while Gasia's form had been obscured by a flop in a stakes race.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Todd Pletcher will be halfway around the world by the time Unbridled Belle starts in Thursday's ninth race at Gulfstream Park. That, however, shouldn't stop Pletcher from adding another victory to his meet-leading total in the 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-old fillies. The race will be decided under entry-level allowance conditions for a $33,000 purse.
ALBANY, Calif. - Art Sherman knows trainers aren't supposed to fall in love with horses, but it's hard not to love Greenie, who seeks his first stakes victory Thursday in the $50,000 Fishermans Wharf at Golden Gate Fields.
A 5-year-old gelding, Greenie is coming off a career-best effort in a Santa Anita allowance race, in which he dead-heated with Areyoutalkintome, earning a 104 Beyer.
"He's a neat horse," Sherman said. "He's always been one of my favorites."
Harrah's Louisiana Downs has named Mark Midland vice president of racing operations, filling a position left open when longtime employee Ray Tromba stepped down in early February.
Midland was promoted from within the company, having served since August as director of marketing at Louisiana Downs. He will now be "responsible for all racetrack operations and racetrack marketing," according to a release from Louisiana Downs.
Bushmills Best made every stride a winning one in the 17th running of the $100,000 OBS Championship Stakes for 3-year-old males at the Ocala Training Center in Florida on Monday. The Championship Stakes was one of six stakes with total purses of $380,000 run in Ocala Monday, four of them restricted to horses who went through the sales ring at an Ocala Breeders' Sales Company sale.
ARCADIA, Calif. - A year ago, trainer John Shirreffs was considered the best-kept secret in California. But when Giacomo won the Kentucky Derby, Shirreffs was revealed to everyone else as a true craftsman with a racehorse.
He came in under the radar last year, but that will not happen this year - not after A. P. Warrior, in his first start for Shirreffs, powered to victory in the San Felipe Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita.
