Less than a week ago, Rocky Gulch won a Zia Park stakes while spotting his rivals between 10 and 18 pounds. This weekend, a similar task falls to Mr. Trieste. He will give away 8 to 19 pounds on Saturday, when he attempts to win his seventh straight race in Zia's $75,000 Veterans.
Mr. Trieste is the 126-pound highweight in the 1 1/16-mile handicap, where he will face five rivals, including four stakes winners: R. Associate, Go Kitty Go, Long Range, and Don't Strike Out.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Schooner Bay passed her first stakes test when she gamely won the Oct. 10 Classy 'N Smart here at Woodbine. But the Classy 'N Smart was a 1 1/16-mile race for Ontario-sired fillies and mares, and Schooner Bay will have to prove her mettle again in Saturday's Grade 3, $198,300 Maple Leaf Stakes over 1 1/4 miles.
"She's hooking open company now," said David Bell, who trains Schooner Bay for Melnyk Racing Stable. "But she's trained good since that last race, and she's been on the improve. She wasn't excelling until she hit that last spot."
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Gulfstream Park will be a work in progress during most of the 2006 meeting, which opens on Jan. 4.
Before Hurricane Wilma struck the local area on Oct. 24, Gulfstream Park's president, Scott Savin, had predicted the entire facility would be ready opening day. On Monday, Savin admitted that only part of the new building will be available for occupancy by then.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Lights. Camera. Action. Friday-night racing returns to Hollywood Park on Veterans Day, and a potential star will be ready for her close-up.
The spotlight will be on Revealed, whose brief, interrupted career has offered hints of promise. She is making her first start since March, but based on her debut last fall at Hollywood Park, she figures to come back running and use this race as a springboard to more lucrative spots in upcoming months.
"She has got potential," said her trainer. "A lot of potential."
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Last year's nose loss in the Grade 2 Red Smith was heartbreaking. Last month's neck loss in the Grade 3 Knickerbocker was heartwarming.
Saturday, the hearty New York-bred gelding Certifiably Crazy will take a third crack at winning an open sweepstakes when he takes a second shot at the $150,000 Red Smith Handicap at Aqueduct. The Red Smith, run at 1 3/8 miles, is the last non-restricted turf stakes scheduled in New York this year.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - After unsuccessfully butting heads with Lost in the Fog and Silver Train in his last two starts, Better Than Bonds finds some class relief Friday when he runs in a third-level allowance that serves as the feature on Aqueduct's nine-race card.
The seven-furlong race has an optional claiming clause and two horses - Upturn and Potrisunrise - are offered for the $75,000 tag.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Rafael Bejarano, who during the last two winters has dominated the jockey standings at his track of choice, will travel extensively after the Churchill Downs fall meet ends Nov. 26 before riding regularly for the first time at the Gulfstream Park meet that begins Jan. 4.
Two winters ago, Bejarano virtually broke all records at Turfway Park at the 2003-04 holiday and winter-spring meets. And last winter, Bejarano was the leading rider at Aqueduct in New York before leaving about a month before the meet ended.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - On a far smaller scale, Chatham Strait is like Cigar in reverse.
When Bill Mott trained him, Chatham Strait couldn't get out of his own way when competing exclusively on dirt. But when Mott gave Chatham Strait his walking papers and sent him to Joan Scott at Tampa Bay Downs, the colt suddenly became competitive upon being moved to the grass.
