Warning to Rocky Gulch: Don't look behind you; someone may be gaining.
For a while, Ciento was at the top of the heap. At the time he was injured in August 2004 following a win in the New Mexico Breeders Association Handicap at SunRay Park, he was the richest New Mexico-bred of all time, with earnings of $776,014.
It was a long time coming, but Sandi Gann has made it back - again.
After spending 14 months recuperating from a fractured left thighbone, Gann, the only female jockey ever to win the local riding title, won with her first mount back Tuesday at Turf Paradise.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Up to this point, Steppenwolfer has had to play their game, racing at distances that are less than optimum for him. But the big, long-striding colt will get a little more of the ground he craves on Saturday, when he starts in the Grade 3, $300,000 Rebel Stakes for 3-year-olds at Oaklawn Park.
Some fairly promising 3-year-old fillies and a once-promising 5-year-old horse make the back end of Thursday's Oaklawn Park racing program worth sticking around for.
Race 9 drew an evenly matched field of seven 3-year-old fillies, while race 10, a second-level allowance with a $35,000 claiming option, has more horses - 12 including a coupled entry - and seems completely up for grabs.
ARCADIA, Calif. - New Joysey Jeff will get less attention than likely favorite Bob and John in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes on Saturday, but few 3-year-olds are improving as rapidly. Trained by Mark Glatt, New Joysey Jeff was making only his third start when he finished second to Refinery in a Feb. 25 allowance, which, Glatt said, "was kind of a training race."
In his first start around two turns, New Joysey Jeff was rated behind a slow pace and finished well while earning a career-best Beyer Speed Figure.
ARCADIA, Calif. - In a perfect world, horses would run only under optimal conditions. But sometimes a proper race is unavailable, and horsemen must choose between not running or running in the wrong race.
It makes a handicapper's task relatively simple. When a horse enters the wrong spot - such as a sprinter in a route or an allowance horse in a graded stakes - they usually can be eliminated from consideration. It is the horse's next start that poses the dilemma.
Trainer Gary Contessa has dominated the current inner-track meeting and enters the penultimate week of racing over the winterized surface with a 21-win advantage over his nearest rival, Bruce Levine. Thursday's six-furlong feature offers a glimpse of one of the reasons Contessa leads the standings: He has done a shrewd job of spotting What's Your Point at the same allowance level at which she won two starts back.
ALBANY, Calif. - There's no absence of early speed in Thursday's Golden Gate Fields feature, a six-furlong $32,000 claimer.
Robert E and Colonel Courtney both love gunning for the lead and forcing their opposition to wilt.
Twentythreejaybird has hooked some rocket ships of late but has plenty of speed and is quite capable of going wire to wire. Abuse of Power and Arch Stanton also have speed, although they are stalkers.
With all the speed, Tonco, the lone off-the-pace runner in the field, figures to be a real threat.
TORONTO, Ontario - It will be status quo this year for the stakes program at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Thirty stakes races worth a combined $1.25 million are on tap for the 70-day meeting, which runs from May 6 through Sept. 24. The highlight once again will be the Manitoba Lotteries Derby.
An open 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-olds, the $100,000 Manitoba Lotteries Derby is the meet's most lucrative race, and will be run on the Civic Holiday program Aug. 7 along with three $40,000 stakes: the Jack Hardy, Wheat City, and Winnipeg Futurity.
