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."
ALTOONA, Iowa - Six Thoroughbred stakes highlight Iowa Classic Night, an all-statebred stakes card on Saturday.
The evening's feature is the $75,000-added Ralph Hayes at 1 1/16 miles for older colts and geldings. The vastly improved Sur Sandpit is the upset selection in the Hayes, which drew a field of 11, including two entries.
Sur Sandpit has turned the corner since being claimed for $15,000 by trainer Suzanne Evans on May 28. Up to that point, Sur Sandpit had failed to hit the board in any of his five starts in 2005. Since the claim he has won three of his five starts.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Zarb's Dahar, winner of his last seven races over the Louisiana Downs main track, puts that winning streak on the line in Saturday's Folklore Handicap. Seven of the region's top sprinters will line up in the 6 1/2-furlong headliner, which carries a $50,000 purse.
One could make a case that Humor at Last was the best Illinois-bred 2-year-old colt of 2004. Last fall at Hawthorne, he won his career debut by seven lengths, won the $90,000 Sun Power Stakes by more than two, and was second by a half-length in the Jim Edgar Futurity, his two-turn debut, after going too fast early in the race.
Thoughtuwasatoad, a 7 1/2-length winner of the Capital City Futurity at Lincoln last month, should rule a solid favorite when he faces seven others, including his stablemate, in the $10,000 Club House Special for 2-year-olds going six furlongs.