ARCADIA, Calif. - Ticker Tape will be a busy girl this winter. The 5-year-old turf mare runs Thursday at Santa Anita as the favorite in the $75,000 Tuzla Handicap, 18 days after finishing second in the Grade 2 San Gorgonio Handicap.
And the one-mile Tuzla is only a warm-up. After that, trainer Jim Cassidy said, "I'm running her right back [Feb. 20] in the Buena Vista."
Calder Race Course has been forced to suspend simulcast operations beginning Wednesday and until further notice while the state of Florida appeals a lower court ruling that declared the law preventing the state's two Thoroughbred tracks from conducting year round simulcasting to be unconstitutional.
The list of Monmouth Park's major stakes for 2006 looks the same as last year's schedule, but the order in which the races will be run has been shuffled.
In order to assure the new turf course will be ready, several grass stakes have been shifted from their traditional dates to later in the season, including the Grade 3 Red Bank Handicap, the Grade 3 Boiling Springs Handicap, and the Jersey Derby.
The Red Bank, usually the first graded race of the season, in late May, has been pushed back to Sept. 2.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Richard Dutrow Jr. has been conspicuously absent from the program since the meet began on Jan. 4, though not by any choice of his own. Dutrow, who trained two 2005 Breeders' Cup winners, including Horse of the Year Saint Liam, was banned from running horses the first three weeks of the meet while the Florida Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering "processed documentation and did a background check on his license application," according to division director Dave Roberts.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Full fields will be the rule for the eight-race, $3.6 million Sunshine Millions card, to be run simultaneously on Saturday at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita, Magna Entertainment Corp.'s two flagship tracks.
The Sunshine Millions, which pits California-breds against Florida-breds, will also mark the end of jockey Jerry Bailey's Hall of Fame career, which concludes at Gulfstream following his ride aboard Silver Tree in the $500,000 Sunshine Millions Turf.
ARCADIA, Calif. - With the $300,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Sprint being run here on Saturday and the Grade 1, $250,000 Santa Monica Handicap on Sunday, trainers of some top-class female sprinters must choose between the two lucrative races.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - A seemingly innocuous midweek first-level allowance dash for older fillies and mares has instead become a race of considerable interest, pitting the multiple graded-stakes-placed Aspen Tree against Madcap Escapade's baby sister Dubai Escapade.
The $33,000 allowance dash will be decided at 6 1/2 furlongs and shares top billing on Wednesday's card with a 1 1/16-mile entry-level allowance race for 3-year-old fillies on the turf.
With the prize money being given away by the time the 2005-06 Fair Grounds meet concluded Sunday, one would imagine owners and trainers clamoring for more of the same next season. But a chorus of voices has united in another direction, urging a return to New Orleans when the next racing season commences.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - It is perhaps a bit premature to project Happy Hunting as a force in the handicap division this year, but with each performance he is showing marked improvement.
Given his terrific bloodlines and the fact he is in the care of one of the best horsemen in the game - Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey - Happy Hunting is certainly a horse to follow as he faces better competition throughout the year.
