SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Precocious babies with speed have become the norm for trainer Patrick Biancone. But as the distances began to get longer, Biancone's juveniles - such as Mayakovsky, Zavata, and Whywhywhy - haven't been as effective.
In the 2002 Hopeful, Zavata was sent off as the 3-10 favorite only to finish third behind Sky Mesa. In the 2001 Hopeful, Mayakovsky, who had equaled a Saratoga track record in a maiden win earlier in the meet, finished second behind Came Home.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Bully Bones's reputation soared when she won the Grade 3 Sorrento Stakes on Aug. 6 after a layoff of more than three months. She fought for the lead throughout the 6 1/2-furlong race and beat eight rivals, showing no effects from the time off.
The victory has done little to make her next assignment any easier. In Saturday's Grade 1, $250,000 over seven furlongs, Bully Bones faces 10 rivals, including several recent maiden winners that have added depth to the 2-year-old filly division.
DEL MAR, Calif. - For the first five weeks of the Del Mar meeting, trainer Dan Hendricks's stable has been better known for making a claim than winning races. Hendricks had won only one race entering Friday's card, but on July 22, Hendricks claimed Smoocher on behalf of owners John and Allegra Ernst for a Del Mar record $125,000.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Javier Castellano admitted to being a little hurt when he heard that he could possibly be replaced as the rider of Bellamy Road had the connections of that horse opted to run in Saturday's King's Bishop rather than the Travers.
But now that he has retained the mount for Saturday's $1 million Travers, Castellano said he is motivated to prove owner George Steinbrenner and trainer Nick Zito right in their decision to keep him.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - The $55,000 Incredible Revenge Stakes for fillies and mares on Saturday seemed in jeopardy when Monmouth Park announced the end of five-furlong turf races for the balance of the meet.
Elimination of the grass sprints was one of the measures instituted to nurse the battered turf course through two more weekends before the scheduled post-Labor Day renovation that will lay down a new course in preparation for the 2007 Breeders' Cup.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - If things turn out right, Wildcat Heir could wind up in the Breeders' Cup Sprint this fall. For now, his attention is turned to the Arlington Breeders' Cup Sprint Handicap here Saturday.
Wildcat Heir, in from Monmouth Park for trainer Ben Perkins Jr. and owner New Farm, is the main attraction in the top sprint race of the Arlington meet. A 5-year-old, Wildcat Heir has started only 11 times, but has 6 wins and 4 seconds. Last November, he won the Grade 1 De Francis Memorial by a neck over Midas Eyes.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. - It's the height of the summer racing season at Saratoga, but trainer John Toscano is dreaming of Aqueduct's inner-track meet as he sends graded stakes winner Sinister G to Saturday's $50,000 Topsider Breeders' Cup at Suffolk Downs, hoping to beat the heat and gear up the barn's star for bigger money this winter.
Timonium racetrack at the Maryland State Fair in Timonium, Md., will open an eight-day live meet Saturday with an 11-race card that begins at 1 p.m. Eastern.
The Timonium meet follows an abbreviated nine-day meet at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, and will precede the opening of Laurel Park's long fall-winter meet on Sept. 7.
Nine races will be held each live racing day on Timonium's five-eighth-mile track, with the exception of the opening-day card and 10-race cards next Saturday and on Labor Day. Post time is 1 p.m. Eastern each day. Dark days are Monday and Tuesday.
D'Wildcat Speed may not need any help to win the $100,000 Aspidistra Handicap at Calder on Saturday. But she might get some anyway.
The Aspidistra, for fillies and mares, is scheduled for a mile on the turf, a surface on which D'Wildcat Speed has never run. But with a tropical storm forecast to sweep through the Miami area Friday, there's a good chance the Aspidistra will be switched to the main track, and that's D'Wildcat Speed's game.
Things almost certainly have to go better for Steve Flint on Saturday at Ellis Park than they did a week ago.
Flint was minding his own business at the far end of the Ellis paddock, preparing to saddle Swept Gold as the heavy favorite in the Anna Fisher Debutante, one of four stakes run last Saturday at the Henderson, Ky., track.
"Next thing I knew, she hit the wall and starting coming down with her front foot," said Flint. "When she came down, she caught me real good on my arm."