DEL MAR, Calif. - The quick times produced on the Del Mar turf this summer have caught turf course superintendent Leif Dickinson by surprise.
Through Friday, two course records have been set since the meeting began July 20. On July 27, Coronado's Pride ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:39.76, shaving .08 seconds off the previous record. Friday, Whata Soldier ran five furlongs in 55 seconds, knocking .06 seconds off the previous mark.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - In the end, there were only 10.
After rumblings a week ago of an oversubscribed Arlington Million, with more than the maximum 14 starters considered possible for Saturday's race, 10 names sat in the box when the Million pre-entry phase closed at midnight Friday.
MIAMI - The Florida Stallion Stakes, the cornerstone of the local stakes schedule through the end of the current session on Oct. 16, kicks off Saturday with both the $75,000 Dr. Fager Stakes and its filly counterpart, the $75,000 Desert Vixen.
In Summation will be the overwhelming favorite to win the six-furlong Dr. Fager. Trained by Frank Gomez, In Summation is perfect in three starts, but was extended for the first time while capturing the Birdonthewire Stakes by 1 1/4 lengths over The Pharoah on July 10.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - While filling a water bucket in the paddock before Friday's sixth race at the Sonoma County Fair, trainer John Martin wondered aloud, "Am I ever going to win a race this meeting?"
Martin, one of northern California's highest percentage trainers, was 1 for 17 at the meet at the time and would be 1 for 18 after that race. But things picked up for him later Friday, when he won with Breezing Home and then Exclusive Deposit.
Jim Ryerson kicked off his Haskell weekend with a victory, as Livermore Valley rallied to win Saturday's $60,000 Colleen Stakes at Monmouth Park.
The Colleen was the second victory of the afternoon for Ryerson, who saddles Park Avenue Ball in the $1 million Haskell Invitational on Sunday.
Livermore Valley ($7) scored her second consecutive victory and captured her stakes debut in the Colleen, the 5 1/2-furlong prep for the $100,000 Sorority on Sept. 3.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Score one for the home team, and call Fort Prado the highest-class Illinois-bred racehorse in training. Winning for the fourth time in as many starts this year, Fort Prado made an early bid to reach contention, then out-gamed Old Deuteronomy in the final furlong to win the Sea O'Erin Breeders' Cup Mile Handicap by 1 1/4 lengths on Saturday at Arlington Park.
Roger Hammer has spent most of his career training and driving at small tracks and county fairgrounds in Pennsylvania. Hammer scaled the heights Saturday at The Meadowlands when he won harness racing's most coveted prize, the $1.5 million Hambletonian.
Hammer, 59, in his Hambo debut, steered Vivid Photo ($16.40) to a 2 3/4-length victory over 1-2 favorite Classic Photo in the race for 3-year-old trotters.
Horacio Karamanos broke Edgar Prado's record for wins at a Colonial Downs meet when he won the seventh race at the New Kent, Va., track on Friday.
Karamanos, a 32-year-old native of Argentina who rides on the Maryland circuit much of the year, rode his 60th winner on the 36th day of the Colonial Downs season. Prado had his 59-win season during a 30-day meet. Karamanos, who holds a commanding lead in the rider standings at the Colonial meet, which concludes Tuesday, had already broken his own record for purse earnings at the meet.
Trainer David Brownlee nearly pulled off a sweep of Saturday's $50,000 Georgia Peaches Stakes at Calder, sending out the first-, second-, and fourth-place finishers.
Chancey Light led the Brownlee brigade, finishing full of run to register a three-length victory over stablemate Spicy Light. Dansetta Light just missed completing the sweep when she finished a head behind Wekiva Mist for third.
"I thought we had finished one-two-three, but this is just fine," said Brownlee.
Owners Donald and Adam Newman and trainer Thomas Bush had been aiming high with Tani Maru, sending him against such top-class horses as Lost in the Fog and Park Avenue Ball in his last two starts. On Saturday, they took aim at a much more realistic target and came away with a bulls-eye when Tani Maru cruised to a 9 3/4-length score over three other 3-year-olds in the $97,000 Larry Riviello President's Cup at Philadelphia Park.
