ALBANY, Calif. - A pair of solid $80,000 optional claimers highlight Friday's Golden Gate Fields card.
Stakes winner Halo Cat and entrymate Jeffries Bay take on four rivals in a six-furlong race that includes Stone Rain and Spanish Chestnut, who is making his first start since setting the pace in last year's Kentucky Derby.
But as intriguing as that race is, it takes second billing to a six-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds.
If anyone is going to whittle down the huge lead in the Laurel Park jockey standings forged by 18-year-old apprentice Rosie Napravnik, this is the week to do so.
Napravnik, who came into Wednesday's program 27 wins ahead of her closest competitor, Erick Rodriguez, is sitting out a five-day suspension for careless riding that extends through Sunday's program.
Before departing, Napravnik solidified her grip as the meet's leading rider by collecting four wins last Friday. It was the fourth time this year she has ridden four winners on a card.
Jockey Kim McIntosh, seriously injured in a spill in the fourth race at Evangeline Downs on Feb. 23, has taken a major step forward in her recovery, according to family members. McIntosh, of Vinton, La., was awake and alert Sunday morning, a week and a half after suffering a fractured skull.
McIntosh was aboard Scotties Abity in a $12,500 claiming affair when her mount went down, throwing her to the ground. She remains at Lafayette General Hospital, where she has been since the accident.
Things don't always go according to plan, but the sign of a top jockey is when he or she can adjust quickly - like, say, in a split-second during a race. Well, Glenn Corbett is a good jockey, and his sharpness helped get Corazondelcampeon into the winner's circle in last Sunday's $40,000 Palo Verde Handicap at Turf Paradise.
"He didn't break well, and we weren't where we wanted to be early," said Corbett, 41. "So we had to go to Plan B."
The 50-date Quarter Horse season at Remington Park opens on Friday night with an infusion of casino cash into purses and the return of the $150,000 Remington Park Invitational Championship.
The longest Quarter Horse season in Remington Park history, surpassing 49 dates in 1989, the meet runs through June 4.
Horsemen will be running at twice the 2005 purses - an estimated $9 million. An infusion of casino funds from 650 video-gaming machines now operating at the track fueled the purse boost.
STICKNEY, Ill. - Home first in 12 of his 21 career starts, and a game victor last summer of the Arlington Sprint Handicap, Fifteen Rounds may be the most accomplished horse stabled right now at Hawthorne Race Course. With two fast workouts since recently shipping north for another season of racing, Fifteen Rounds may be ready to pick up in 2006 where he left off in 2005.
STICKNEY, Ill. - Richard Hazelton has shipped horses north for the spring racing season via airplane, trailer, and train, but that was back in the old days, when Hazelton would go home to the Southwest for the winter after he had finished loading up barrels of purse money during the warmer months.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Grade 1 winners Happy Ticket and Round Pond are both on the comeback trail and need a stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap later in the meet. Both have landed in Saturday's Grade 3, $175,000 Azeri Breeders' Cup as their prep, and the resulting matchup is an early-season coup for the Oaklawn stakes program.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The last time Jon Court rode Healthy Addiction, she sprang a $92.20 upset in a turf stakes last August at Del Mar. Her odds will not be as high when Court rides her again Saturday in the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Handicap for fillies and mares, but Healthy Addiction may be overlooked in a strong field led by Grade 1 winners Dream of Summer and Star Parade, the likely favorite.
Healthy Addiction's trainer, John Sadler, hopes for better racing luck than she had in the Grade 1 Santa Maria Handicap on Feb. 11.
