Ellis Park will run 10 stakes during its 36-day meet this summer, officials at the Henderson, Ky., track announced Friday.
The highlight of the meet, which runs July 19 to Sept. 4, is the Grade 3, $150,000 Gardenia Handicap, the lone graded race on the schedule. For the second straight year, the Gardenia will anchor a "Big Four Stakes Saturday" program on Aug. 5.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Itsallatrick has won only one race in her life - officially, that is.
The 4-year-old Itsallatrick will be looking for victory No. 2 when she returns to the races from a seven-month layoff to meet five rivals in Sunday's Bay Meadows feature, a six-furlong allowance sprint for fillies and mares.
Although she is the only runner in the field who has never run in a claimer, Itsallatrick could be in tough.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Stevie Wonderboy may have won the 2005 Breeders' Cup Juvenile, but he is left with something to prove when he makes his 2006 debut in Saturday's $150,000 at Santa Anita.
The annual questions about whether a colt such as Stevie Wonderboy, the likely champion 2-year-old male of 2005, can replicate that form in the preps for the Kentucky Derby will be asked frequently.
Trainer Doug O'Neill welcomes the inquiries, even though Stevie Wonderboy will be the colt everyone is trying to dethrone in the buildup to the Kentucky Derby on May 6.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The recent form of Greeley's Galaxy seems easy to criticize in advance of Saturday's $200,000 San Fernando Breeders' Cup Stakes at Santa Anita.
won the Grade 2 Illinois Derby by 9 1/2 lengths last April, but followed with an 11th in the Kentucky Derby and a seventh in the Preakness Stakes last May. When he returned from injury and finished seventh in the Malibu Stakes on Dec. 26, his backers could understandably be frustrated by the loss.
ARCADIA, Calif. - With a concentration of 4-year-old fillies in his stable, Eastern trainer John Ward plans to have a presence in Southern California in coming months.
Sunday, Ward's Play Ballado will make her graded stakes debut in the Grade 2, $150,000 El Encino Stakes for 4-year-old fillies over 1 1/16 miles. If she runs well, she could stay for the $200,000 La Canada Stakes on Feb. 12 or be replaced by stablemates Miss Matched or For All We Know.
"The [4-year-old] fillies on the West Coast have a lot more opportunities than on the East Coast," Ward said.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - About an hour before the behemoths Stevie Wonderboy and Brother Derek stage an early-season shootout at Santa Anita, seven far more anonymous 3-year-olds will try to tiptoe into the Kentucky Derby picture in the Risen Star Stakes.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - The Silverbulletday Stakes has a rich recent history. Last year Summerly was the heroine, winning the Kentucky Oaks two starts later. Shadow Cast, the 2004 winner, turned into a Grade 1 filly, and Take Charge Lady was brilliant in 2002. But all that came when the race was run in mid-February in New Orleans, a prep for the Fair Grounds Oaks. This year, the Grade 3, $250,000 Silverbulletday has moved, like the rest of the meet, to Louisiana Downs. This year, the race comes up early, and there is no Fair Grounds Oaks a month away.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - When you think Louisiana Downs, the French trainer Christophe Clement seems about a light year away. But the Clement-trained Snowdrops may feel right at home here Saturday in the Bayou Breeders' Cup Handicap.
A solid Grade 3 turf horse approaching a half-million dollars in career earnings, Snowdrops should be heavily favored to win the Grade 3, $250,000 Bayou, a 1 1/8-mile grass race.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Shug McGaughey could have sent La Reina to Louisiana Downs this weekend, where she would have been one of the outsiders in the $250,000 Bayou Breeders' Cup Handicap. His other choice was to keep her home, where she would be among the top contenders in Saturday's $75,000 Marshua's River Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
In the end, McGaughey opted for the lesser purse but easier spot in the 1 1/16-mile Marshua's River, which drew a full and evenly matched field of 12 filly and mare turf specialists, plus two also-eligibles.
