Endlessly, a four-time stakes winner in California and Kentucky in 2023 and 2024, and Look Forward, the surprise winner of the Eight Belles Stakes at Churchill Downs on May 2, have stakes engagements at Saratoga next week.
Four stakes races on the Friday card at Penn National, including the Grade 3, $400,000 Penn Mile, will be canceled due to inclement weather and rescheduled for June 20. This Friday’s card will be shortened to seven races without any stakes.
The original 11 races scheduled for Friday at the Grantsville, Pa., track were to include the Penn Mile and $150,000 Penn Oaks, as well as two $75,000 statebred handicaps, the Lyphard and Alphabet Soup. All four races were scheduled for turf and likely would have been taken off due to expected rain.
Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen’s week got off to a strong start Monday, when he saddled Neom Beach to a 6 1/2-length win in the $200,000 Ouija Board Distaff at his home track of Lone Star Park.
This weekend, he will have more to celebrate.
The Texas Thoroughbred Association is awarding Asmussen the T.I. “Pops” Harkins Award for lifetime achievement. It will be given out during the organization’s annual awards luncheon on Saturday at Lone Star.
Nobals, the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner, set a course record while winning an allowance last Saturday at Churchill Downs, an effort that had trainer Larry Rivelli planning a return to the Breeders’ Cup.
“For him to do that, now I know he’s back,” Rivelli said. “He had no excuses. That was his race to win and he did it in the way that you want him to.”
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – The Japanese-bred Komorebino Omoide is developing into an older horse of significance, and while plans for his next move are still being determined following his Monday win in the Grade 3, $400,000 Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star Park, a long-range goal is the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic.
Trainer Robertino Diodoro said Komorebino Omoide, a 5-year-old son of California Chrome who races for his breeder, Perry Martin, emerged from the Sexton in good order and will remain at Lone Star while plans for his next start are decided.
A small fire in a kitchen area of the clubhouse at Saratoga Race Course on Tuesday caused minor damage, but it should have no impact on the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival scheduled for June 4-8, a New York Racing Association spokesman said.
According to NYRA spokesman Pat McKenna, firefighters from the Saratoga Springs and Malta Ridge Fire departments responded to the fire at approximately 12:45 p.m. Tuesday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – There are a million ways to celebrate Memorial Day, but trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. may have found a new one. This past Monday, Joseph spent the afternoon sitting in his hotel room in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., rooting home three members of his potent stable in stakes races, with Be Your Best and Skippylongstocking making it a holiday to remember after capturing the Grade 1 Gamely and Grade 2 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita.
ARCADIA, Calif. – An hour after Seismic Beauty’s dominant win in Sunday’s Grade 2 Santa Margarita Stakes at Santa Anita, syndicate manager Joe Moran stood beaming near the track’s paddock.
Moran, 30, had watched the 4-year-old Seismic Beauty take command of the $200,000 Santa Margarita Stakes at the start and lead throughout, sailing to a five-length win in her stakes debut.
“She’s 4 and just getting going,” Moran said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Iron Man Cal, second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar last November, but sixth in the Grade 1 American Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs on May 3 in his first race this year, is scheduled to start in the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes at Del Mar on July 18.
The gap between the $1 million American Turf and the restricted Oceanside is not ideal, trainer Phil D’Amato said over the weekend at Santa Anita.
“I wish there was a race at the end of the meet [at Santa Anita],” he said.
The popular border oval Fort Erie launches its 2025 season on Tuesday with an eight-race card, the first of 40 racing days during a meet which is scheduled to conclude Oct. 21.
Racing will be conducted on Tuesdays until June 15, Father’s Day, the first of four Sunday programs during the meet. Mondays will be added to the schedule June 23. There will be no Tuesday racing June 17, July 15, July 29, and Aug. 19.