In more ways than one, there was simply no competition for Celestial Legend in the $75,000 Marshua Stakes at Laurel Park on Saturday.
Three scratches left only three rivals to face Celestial Legend in the 5 1/2-furlong stakes for 3-year-old fillies, and she remained unbeaten in five starts by coasting to a 12-length victory.
Capitalizing on a seasoning edge, Final Copy rallied from sixth to win the $50,000 Turfway Prevue by 3 1/4 Lengths over Warrior Within.
The winningest 3-year-old in the 11-horse field with three victories heading into the race, Final Copy settled in a perfect position early, stalking the pace while three others engaged in a battle up front. As the leaders began to tire after setting fractions of 23.77 and 47.24 seconds over the tiring Polytrack surface, he began to advance under Jesus Castanon, and once into the stretch, the race was quickly over.
Avoiding trouble at the start that eliminated several of her rivals, Platinum Perfect chased the early leader for a half-mile, then rallied into the stretch to take over the lead and posted a length victory in the $60,000 Minaret Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.
Ridden by the meeting's leading rider, Jose Lezcano, Platinum Perfect ($6.20) covered the six furlongs over a fast racing strip in 1:10.68 to post her seventh win from 15 outings. The $34,500 winner's share of the purse raised her career earnings to $218,350.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The Southern California filly-mare grass colony returns home Sunday at Santa Anita for the division's first graded stakes in two months. It's about time.
The race is the Grade 2 San Gorgonio Handicap, a 1 1/8-mile oasis for a race-starved group that scattered across the country during the all-dirt meet at Hollywood Park. The San Gorgonio entrants are familiar in California, even if their recent running lines are not.
ARCADIA, Calif. - It's not the usual style for trainer Richard Mandella to jump a maiden winner straight into a stakes race. And, truth be told, he would rather have put Peace Chant in an allowance race. One Union, too.
"I tried to run them in an allowance race, but it wouldn't go," Mandella said. "So I had to go here. They're both in the same boat."
ARCADIA, Calif. - Giacomo, the Kentucky Derby winner, will not make next week's San Fernando Breeders' Cup Stakes at Santa Anita. In fact, he wasn't even nominated to the race.
The deadline to nominate to the Grade 2, $200,000 San Fernando was Thursday night, but Giacomo was not among the nominees. He did, however, work Friday morning at Hollywood Park, covering six furlongs in 1:14.80.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Honor in War is a Grade 1 winner, Remind and Big Booster love the course, and Saint Stephen is coming off a brutal trip. Those are just a few of the handicapping angles that will come into play for fans trying to select the winner of Sunday's wide- open Ft. Lauderdale Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
The Ft. Lauderdale will be decided under allowance conditions at 1 1/16 miles on the turf for a $75,000 purse.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Hotstufanthensome will be among the top contenders in Sunday's $75,000 Ft. Lauderdale Stakes, but his trainer, Norman Pointer, will not be on hand for the race.
Pointer, 60, has been forced to take a leave of absence from the barn due to health issues discovered shortly after Hotstufanthensome's eighth-place finish in Calder's Grade 3 Tropical Turf Handicap on Dec. 3.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Mr. Sulu has dominated the Louisiana-bred turf division at Fair Grounds in recent years, and the meeting's move north to Louisiana Downs this winter appears to have mattered little.
Last month , 8, successfully defended his title in the Louisiana Champions Day Turf to become the first horse to win that race three times. On Sunday, he will shoot for his third Dixie Poker Ace Stakes victory in the last four years. He will face five rivals in the one-mile turf race for statebreds.
Two suspected cases of the equine herpes virus have caused officials at Pimlico Race Course to isolate five horses in the track's detention barn and to quarantine another 40-horse barn, track officials said Friday. The precautions are in place as Maryland officials await results of tests to determine if a horse euthanized on Monday had been sick from the virus.
