ETOBICOKE, Ontario - While trainer Mark Casse's barn has been making headlines, winning three of the last four stakes races here at Woodbine, trainer Lorne Richards has been making hay with some former Casse runners.
Richards, who trains for K.K. Sangara, struck here on Sunday with two horses purchased from Casse.
P.J.'s Paulie Boy won the day's 10th race while entered for $60,000 in a second-level allowance/optional claimer, mowing down the promising Casse-trained front-runner Flat Rock.
Jockey Hector Cuevas suffered a severe back injury on Friday during trials for the Los Alamitos Million Futurity for 2-year-old Quarter Horses and remained hospitalized late Monday.
Cuevas, a native of Mexico, underwent seven hours of surgery Saturday. According to his friends, he was sitting up in his hospital bed on Sunday, but he had limited feeling in his lower extremities.
Cuevas, 20, was thrown from Southern Icon in the evening's second race. Southern Icon fell and rolled over Cuevas. Southern Icon died from apparent internal injuries, according to track officials.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Groundhog Day is still two months away, but followers of New York racing won't need Punxsutawney Phil to let them know that this will be an extended winter.
Though the calendar still says November, Aqueduct's inner track opens for business on Wednesday. And, at the behest of track superintendent John Passero, the inner track meet has been lengthened by two weeks, meaning the main track is not scheduled to open until March 29.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The last time Todd Pletcher was involved with a horse who won the Remsen, it was 1994, when he was working as the New York-based assistant for trainer D. Wayne Lukas. The horse was Thunder Gulch, who would go on the following year to win the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, and Travers, and be named champion 3-year-old.
Eleven years later, Pletcher has a winner to call his own in Bluegrass Cat and a horse he hopes could give him his first Kentucky Derby winner next May.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Business figures were up in virtually every category at the 21-day fall meet at Churchill Downs, where a massive pick six carryover, large fields, and the completion of the $121 million facility renovation were major factors in the upsurge.
All-sources wagering averaged more than $8 million per day for the first time in track history. The final number was $8,676,904, an increase of 11.3 percent over the 2004 fall meet, when the new facility was still not ready.
Rockport Harbor and Round Pond are among the 200 horses already stabled at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., which opened for training about a week earlier than usual this year, on Nov. 22. The number of horses on the grounds is expected to double in the next week or so because of the completion of the Churchill Downs meet, said Terry Wallace, a spokesman for Oaklawn.
"Some of the Kentucky guys will be shipping in this week," Wallace said Monday.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Bay Meadows will run eight stakes during its Holiday Meet, which runs from Dec. 26 through Feb. 5, including the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby. The purse for the El Camino Real has been raised $50,000 to $250,000 this year.
Purses for the eight stakes total $730,000. There are four $75,000 stakes and three $60,000 overnight handicaps to go with the El Camino Real, which will be run on Jan. 29.
ALBANY, Calif. - The 1 3/8-mile distance of Wednesday's feature at Golden Gate Fields, a $25,000 optional claimer on turf, should be no problem for Magnum, a stakes-placed colt in his native Argentina who will be going after his first victory in the United States.
was fourth at the distance in the Group 2 Clasico Eduardo Casey last fall, in a race won by Argentine Derby champion Basko Pinton. Magnum was third in the Group 1 Polla de Potrillos (Argentine 2000 Guineas) and second as the favorite in the Group 2 Clasico Clausura in his final start in Argentina.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Soul Rebel, who was scratched from Sunday's $125,000 Sir Barton Stakes, faces a much more comfortable assignment here in Wednesday's $69,100 allowance feature.
An impressive winner of his only career start, a 1 1/16-mile Ontario-sired maiden special here Oct. 5, Soul Rebel will face five rivals in an Ontario-sired first-level allowance. Run at 1 1/16 miles, the race goes as the second and begins a pick seven with a carryover of $1,231.83.
