Horacio Karamanos, sidelined for six weeks following minor knee surgery, won with two of his first three mounts in his first day back last Sunday at Laurel Park.
Karamanos, 32, guided Favorite Song from last to first for a two-length victory in the second race and won with 2-1 favorite Broken Treaty in race 5.
Karamanos has won 883 races with earnings exceeding $18 million since relocating from his native Argentina in 2001.
Who's the hottest female apprentice rider in the Mid-Atlantic region?
Rosie Napravnik, the 18-year-old runaway leader in the standings at Laurel Park, is certainly the obvious answer. But Philadelphia Park has a sizzling female apprentice of its own in Maria Charles.
Between last Saturday and Tuesday, Charles went 7 for 20 with her mounts, a 35-percent hit rate. She was in the money with 60 percent of her horses, and importantly from a bettor's standpoint, she produced a $5.65 return on investment.
Prairie Meadows director of racing Derron Heldt and racing secretary Dan Doocy are currently touring the country, visiting the backsides of numerous tracks and recruiting horsemen for the upcoming 45-day meeting, which begins April 21.
Heldt and Doocy have a powerful tool to entice trainers - major purse increases. Prairie will average approximately $250,000 per day in purses during the 2006 Thoroughbred meeting, up approximately 35 percent from last year, when the average daily purse was about $186,000.
When Shons Secret picked up her first stakes win in Saturday night's $40,000 Tomball at Sam Houston Race Park, the victory meant much more to her connections than just an increase in her residual value. Shons Secret lost her right eye as a yearling, and in overcoming the handicap she has become a favorite of many who have come in contact with her, said her trainer, Ralph Irwin.
"They're all special, but she's one of those that, when she does something like the Tomball Stakes, it just means even more," said Irwin.
The New Mexico Horse Breeders' Association announced its year-end awards for 2005, and to no one's surprise Rocky Gulch took the spotlight.
A son of Dry Gulch, Rocky Gulch was named champion older male after scoring three stakes wins, including the $147,200 New Mexico Cup Classic at Zia Park on Nov. 6.
Owned by his breeder, Larry Teague, Rocky Gulch also won the New Mexico State University and the Mt. Cristo Rey handicaps at Sunland Park. He is also the richest New Mexico-bred of all time.
King Justin showed speed is his game last Friday, when he set a track record for 4 1/2 furlongs here. A 5-year-old Arizona-bred trained by Ralph Andersen, King Justin sizzled early under Joel Campbell and just kept going, hitting the wire in 50.38 seconds. He broke the old record of 50.40 set by Kathryn's Doll in 1967 and Jazz Hot in 1995.
"On the lead is where he likes to be," said Campbell. "And when he's there, he's awfully fast."
Will Rogers Downs near Tulsa, Okla., will open for live racing for the first time since 2001 on Friday. The track will conduct a mixed meet for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses for 42 days, and the season will run through May 28.
There will be eight Thoroughbred races daily, and purses for those races will average about $80,000 a day, according to track officials. In all, daily purses for the meet are budgeted at about $101,000.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Mark Hanna isn't sure just how good Shytrando is, but he's glad he's going to be able to find out soon.
won her only race in wire-to-wire style in a $32,000 maiden claimer, and she returns in Friday's Golden Gate Fields feature, a $40,000 starter allowance race for fillies and mares at six furlongs.
Shytrando has the lowest career-best Beyer Speed Figure among the six entrants in the race, and four of her five rivals have better last-race Beyers than her 60. But she won her debut so impressively that she appears a viable contender here.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - As usual, The Grade 3, $250,000 British Columbia Derby, on Sept. 24 this year, is the highlight of the Hastings stakes schedule.
Beginning with the April 14 opening-day feature, the $50,000 George Royal, Hastings will run 42 stakes in 2006 - seven fewer than in 2005. Still, the total stakes purse money is only slightly less than last year, $2,895,000 compared to $2,935,000 in 2005.
Accounting for the comparable dollar figure despite the fewer number of races is a $10,000 increase to the minimum stakes purse from $40,000 to $50,000.
