ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Financingavailable looked like the horse to beat in Sunday's Victoriana Stakes at Woodbine, but she will not be keeping that date after suffering a temporary setback.
"A little problem flared up after her last work," said Lorne Richards, who trains Financingavailable for K.K. Sangara. "She had to miss about five days of training.
"I had wanted to work her back in a week, but I wasn't able to do that, so I didn't feel it was in my best interest to run."
FORT ERIE, Ontario - Daniel David put on an exhibition of riding skill on Tuesday at Fort Erie. He won the first race, wire to wire, while having no stirrup on the right side of his mount, Tails of the Crypt, for the entire race.
"Soon as I came out of the gate the buckle on the stirrup broke," said David, 41. "The horse didn't get spooked. One mile and a sixteenth is a long way, even on two legs.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Gus Again looks for his third win in the Agassiz Stakes, a one-mile race for Manitoba-bred 3-year-olds and upward Saturday. An 8-year-old son of Kyle's Our Man, Gus Again won the 2001 and 2004 editions of the Agassiz, and finished second, beaten a nose, in 2002.
This year, the Wayne Elias-trained Gus Again appeared to have lost a step when he failed to win in his first four starts. But in his most recent start, Gus Again was dropped into a $14,000 claimer and beat His Money by a length after dueling with that one throughout.
DEL MAR, Calif. - From his vantage point on the lower level of the Hollywood Park grandstand, Leandro Mora, the top assistant to Doug O'Neill, had an excellent view of Lava Man's emphatic victory in the $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 9.
As the O'Neill-trained Lava Man pulled clear to win by 8 3/4 lengths, Mora noticed the vigorous cheering from rival trainer Beau Greely, whose Borrego was rallying from off the pace.
"When I saw Beau screaming for his horse, I thought he was screaming to win," Mora recalled recently. "But he was screaming to be second."
DEL MAR, Calif. - Puxa Saco went from a brilliant performance to a dreadful one at Hollywood Park earlier this year with a win in the Grade 3 Desert Stormer Handicap in June and an eighth in the Grade 2 A Gleam Handicap in July.
The A Gleam makes her form look poor for Friday's $150,000 Rancho Bernardo Handicap at Del Mar, but trainer Jenine Sahadi insists that Puxa Saco will be ready.
"I think she'll run her race. I have to throw that race out and start over," Sahadi said of the A Gleam. "When she's doing good, she doesn't throw in a clunker like that."
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Last Saturday was a particularly good day for trainer Bobby Barbara. After winning two races on the Saratoga card, Barbara welcomed a very nice 3-year-old filly to his stable that night.
How nice Victory Lap is will be better known Friday when she runs against Ready's Gal and My Typhoon in the Grade 2, $150,000 Lake Placid Handicap at nine furlongs on the turf.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Todd Pletcher loved how Ready's Gal relaxed and then kicked home when she won last month's Grade 3 Lake George Handicap. But the front-running tactics Ready's Gal used when she won the Little Silver Stakes in June may be what she needs to employ in a seemingly paceless running of Friday's Grade 2, $150,000 Lake Placid Handicap at Saratoga.
The Lake Placid, run at 1 1/8 miles on the Mellon Turf Course, drew only six 3-year-old fillies. , 2 for 2 on turf, will likely be favored in a field that includes stakes winners My Typhoon and Victory Lap.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - On the Bus, a disappointment in two starts this year, and Kate Winslet, a disappointment in five starts since coming to North America last fall, turned their fortunes around Wednesday by winning split divisions of the for New York-breds at Saratoga.
In the first division, worth $82,650, On the Bus received a ground-saving trip from Edgar Prado and prevailed by a head over Finlandia after a stretch battle in the final sixteenth of a mile. It was 3 1/4 lengths back to Beebe Lake.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Trainer-jockey combinations sometimes feel like the province of the self-proclaimed simulcast parlor guru, the guy speaking in loud tone about so-and-so's go-to rider at whatever track has popped up on the screen.
But there are exceptions.
