ARCADIA, Calif. - A gloomy weather forecast complicates the resumption of turf stakes Sunday at Santa Anita. The uncertainty surrounding the Grade 2 reflects the ambiguity of the lineup.
Grade 2 winners Badge of Silver and Choctaw Nation have never raced on grass. South American Group 1 winner Don Incauto will run for the first time since an illness last spring nearly killed him. Grade 1-placed Whilly fits on class, but his chances decrease on soft going. Rain is predicted.
MIAMI - Yankee Master came to Calder last month undefeated and seemingly unbeatable, but could not quite live up to expectations, finishing second as the odds-on favorite in the Kris S. Stakes. Sunday, Barbaro will find himself in a similar position when he puts his unblemished record on the line in the $100,000 Tropical Park Derby, where his stiffest challenge is likely to come from Yankee Master.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - When you think Sugar Bowl Stakes at Fair Grounds, the image is of some very fast 2-year-olds battling it out on New Years Eve. This year's edition will still feature plenty of speed, but this time the combatants will be making their first starts as 3-year-olds.
The race has been moved to Sunday, New Year's Day, to accommodate a stakes schedule revamped in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the meet being moved here to Louisiana Downs.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Don Warren finds himself in a spot many California trainers have found themselves in of late.
He has a talented entrant in Sunday's $75,000 Bay Meadows Cotillion Handicap at 1 1/16 miles. But he has to overcome the Jerry Hollendorfer factor.
Hollendorfer, northern California's leading trainer, has been unbeatable in stakes of late. He won the final four stakes offered at Golden Gate Fields and won the opening-day stakes here.
MIAMI - The prototype of a grass star is a horse who takes his or her sweet time to develop. These horses normally sport pedigrees to suggest that peak performance will come with maturity and longer distances, and they usually are brought along slowly and carefully by their trainers.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Even Patrick Biancone admits that Kitty Hawk's European form is something of a puzzle.
The filly has run twice, winning a five-furlong maiden race in Ireland and finishing 11th in the Group 3 Prix du Calvados in France. Both races were in August.
"It's difficult to assess," Biancone said of Kitty Hawk's form.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Friday may have been the second to last day of the calendar year, but it may eventually turn out to be the first day of the rest of Ramon Dominguez's riding career.
Dominguez, a dominant figure on the Mid-Atlantic scene in recent years, officially joined the New York jockey colony on Friday at Aqueduct. He had one winner, two seconds and a third from four mounts, the win coming aboard Knox ($12) in the day's featured $50,000 allowance race.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Though they both come out of poor performances in the same Grade 2 stakes last out, Comacina and Amazing Buy could be the main threats to probable favorite Bank Audit in Sunday's $65,000 Interborough Handicap at Aqueduct.
, the 119-pound highweight, is deserving of favoritism in the Interborough as she won this race and two graded stakes in 2005. Bank Audit comes off a third-place finish in the Garland of Roses, a race in which she was trying to get out a bit.
