ETOBICOKE, Ontario - A stakes race has been named in honor of Canadian idol Northern Dancer, and Bell Canada is taking over as sponsor for the erstwhile Atto Mile. Those are the most noteworthy changes to Woodbine's 2006 stakes schedule released by the Woodbine Entertainment Group on Wednesday. A total of 101 stakes worth almost $21.85 million will be run at the 168-day meeting, which runs from April 1 through Dec. 3.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Who said The Tin Man lacked heart? Maybe in "The Wizard of Oz," but when you consider all that the stakes-winning turf horse The Tin Man has gone through, he might be the wizard of awes.
bowed not one, but both front tendons in 2000 at age 2, before he ever raced. He needed a year to recover. He had a nine-month layoff following the 2003 Breeders' Cup, and needed another 14 months to recuperate from a serious ankle injury before launching his most recent comeback in December.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Giacomo, who finished third in the Strub Stakes on Feb. 4, worked seven furlongs in 1:25 at Hollywood Park on Monday, his final major workout before the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap on March 4. The workout was the fastest of seven timed works at the distance.
Ridden by Corey Nakatani, Giacomo started five lengths behind a stablemate, caught up with him at the quarter pole, and pulled away to finish six lengths clear, trainer John Shirreffs said.
"He was feeling very good this morning," Shirreffs said of Giacomo, the 2005 Kentucky Derby winner.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Sherwood Park may be a key on many pick-six tickets at Santa Anita on Thursday, a program that begins with a huge one-day pick-six carryover of $231,863.
returned from an eight-month layoff last month to nearly score the second victory of his four-race career. He rallied from well off the pace and took the lead in the stretch before losing by a neck.
Thursday at Santa Anita, Sherwood Park will be favored to secure his second win when he starts in a $50,000 allowance race at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Questions of pace, distance, footing, and current form make Thursday's $60,000-added Flip's Pleasure Stakes a treacherous handicapping exercise.
The overnight sprint drew 10 older fillies and mares, and the early pace will be swift.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Same field, different posts. That has been the ongoing story with the $50,000 Pippin Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares that has been drawn three times in the last week because a winter storm forced the cancellation of racing Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at Oaklawn Park.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The undefeated Music School could make his stakes debut Saturday in the $250,000 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park, his trainer, Neil Howard, said Tuesday.
The one-mile race was to be run Monday, but a winter storm in the region forced the cancellation of live racing on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. A new date for the Southwest was set, and the race will be redrawn on Thursday.
Music School, who is closely related to the 2003 Horse of the Year, Mineshaft, is owned by the partnership of Will Farish, James Elkins Jr., and Temple Webber Jr.
ALBANY, Calif. - Roberto Gonzalez is the dean of the Bay Area jockey colony, having ridden here since 1978.
With back-to-back victories in Monday's sixth and seventh races at Golden Gate Fields, he reached the 4,000 plateau for career wins.
Appropriately, his landmark victory came aboard the Jeff Bonde-trained Peek a Bootrando - appropriate because the two have been friends since 1972, when both were exercise riders for trainer Jerry Dutton in Southern California.
Gonzalez is the godfather of Bonde's four children.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Ten older horses will enter uncharted waters on Thursday when they are asked to go 1 1/2 miles for the first time in the $33,000 allowance feature at Gulfstream Park. The long-distance event will be decided under entry-level conditions on the turf.
During a winter when Maryland racing has been peppered by dreary reports of barn quarantines and outbreaks of the equine herpesvirus, apprentice jockey Rosie Napravnik has been a breath of fresh air.
Through Feb. 20, Napravnik led the Laurel Park jockey standings with 46 wins, 18 ahead of her closest competitor, Erick Rodriguez, and seventh nationally. By riding a winner for the 11th consecutive program on Monday, she completed a six-day hot streak in which she won 12 races and finished in the money 31 times from 46 mounts.
