FORT ERIE, Ontario - Three of the nine runners entered for the six-furlong Don Valliere Memorial Cup at Fort Erie Sunday are trained by John Simms.
The Don Valliere Memorial is the first of eight races in the Cup series, and each race has a purse of $30,000. The series, which is restricted to runners who have had two starts at the current meet, ends on Labor Day, Sept. 5, with the doubleheader of the Puss n Boots and Centre Stage Anne.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - The owner-trainer team of Charles Fletcher and Cody Autrey has moved to Louisiana Downs following a high percentage meet at Lone Star Park and will jump into the stakes program on Sunday with Majestic Thief in the $40,000 Blue Skies Handicap.
Fletcher and Autrey also plan to start Premier Dance in the $50,000 Minstrel next Saturday.
Majestic Thief is one of six horses in the Blue Skies, a mile-and-70-yard race that also drew Akanti, the defending champ, and Crowned King, a two-time stakes winner this meet at Louisiana Downs.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - See the Wind will be looking to follow a well-established tradition when she starts in Sunday's $500,000 Breeders' Stakes.
Fillies have won 11 runnings of the Breeders', the 1 1/2-mile turf race that is the final leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, since the series was inaugurated in 1959.
The latest was Sweetest Thing, who came into the 2001 Breeders' off a win two weeks earlier in the Wonder Where, a 1 1/4-mile turf race for fillies and mares that is the final leg of Canada's triple tiara.
As Gardenia Day draws near, the field for the lone graded race of the Ellis Park meet is beginning to take shape.
The Grade 3, $150,000 Gardenia Handicap, a filly and mare race set for Aug. 20, could get a California shipper, Dream of Summer, along with local contenders Tamweel and Kristy Beethoven, according to Ellis racing secretary Doug Bredar.
Dream of Summer, trained by Juan Garcia, won the Grade 1 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park in April and therefore would be a solid choice in the Gardenia. Based at Del Mar, she is unraced since finishing fourth in the restricted
CHICAGO - Of the 34 horses considered possible starters in Arlington's International Festival of Racing next Saturday, only four are actually at Arlington Park right now. Miss Terrible has been pointed for a couple of months to the Beverly D. Handicap and has been working regularly here toward that start. Three other horses currently at Arlington - Merger, Cosmic Kris, and Purim - could face favored English Channel in the Secretariat Stakes.
Purim appears to be the best of that trio, but trainer Tom Proctor hasn't yet committed to a Secretariat start.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The fast-improving Jambalaya will try to give trainer Catherine Day Phillips her second straight victory in the $500,000 Breeders' Stakes on Sunday at Woodbine.
The Breeders', for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds, is the third leg of the Canadian Triple Crown. The first two winners in the series, Queen's Plate winner Wild Desert and Prince of Wales Stakes winner Ablo, have bypassed this 1 1/2-mile turf marathon.
Mum's the word when trainer Karin Wagner is asked to discuss some of the better older horses in the modest eight-runner stable she has at Delaware Park this summer.
It's not that Wagner runs a secretive operation. Rather, she's reluctant to provide details about her runners for fear of losing them through the claiming box.
In Wagner's case, she isn't being paranoid by keeping quiet. Although she has started just 20 horses at the current meet, Wagner has already lost five via claims.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer is all about winning on the racetrack.
But even he had to be pleased with the effort Cause to Believe gave when beaten three-quarters of a length in the Malcolm Anderson on June 18 at Golden Gate Fields.
She's stuck on the far outside and makes her first start in more than two months, but those hurdles and six other 3-year-old fillies may not be enough to stop Excusabull as she heads the $15,000 Helen Anthony Memorial Stakes at Yavapai Downs Sunday. The six-furlong event for 3-year-old fillies goes as the seventh race on a nine-race card.
Excusabull, owned by Hal Earnhardt 3rd and trained by Dan McFarlane, won her maiden in Southern California in June 2004 for Bob Baffert. She ran in stakes there without success, and then started moving down the class ladder.
The undefeated three-time Grade 1 futurity winner Leading Spirit is training well in his attempt to win the $2 million All American Futurity along with a $4 million bonus, according to trainer Blane Wood.
The bonus goes to the connections of a horse who can win the Ruidoso, Rainbow, and All American futurities at Ruidoso Downs. Co-owned by Barry Thompson and Dan and Jolene Urschel, Leading Spirit has won the Ruidoso and Rainbow futurities, plus the Grade 1 West Texas Futurity at Sunland Park.
