LOUISVILLE, Ky. - By sheer coincidence, Tony Reinstedler is running a horse against his onetime budding star. Reinstedler will saddle longshot Gouldings Green on Saturday in the Stephen Foster Handicap, the Grade 1 race in which Saint Liam, for whom Reinstedler laid a solid foundation, will be the highweight and probable favorite.
Reinstedler said he holds "absolutely none" of the ill feelings that some trainers might have when an owner takes a top horse away.
"I don't think that way," he said.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - With Santa Anita Handicap winner Rock Hard Ten only in light training, there is no clear leader in the California handicap division and few horses that merit national attention.
That could change after Saturday's $250,000 Californian Stakes at Hollywood Park, the top prep for the $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 9.
The eight entrants of the Grade 2 Californian will be trying to score, or in one case equal, their biggest career wins. Only Choctaw Nation has won a purse this large - in the San Diego Handicap last summer at Del Mar.
ALBANY, Calif. - This is one time that trainer Bill Morey wouldn't mind if lightning struck twice.
Two years ago, he claimed a California-bred for $32,000 from his debut and turned Trapper into the winner of a $100,000 stakes.
He is hoping to do the same with Don Jaun Con, claimed from an impressive victory in his debut and one of the ones to beat Saturday in Golden Gate Fields' final stakes of the spring meeting, the $75,000 Malcolm Anderson at five furlongs for 2-year-olds.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - My Trusty Cat is bred like a route horse. When she was young, she seemed to run like a route horse. If it looks like a route horse and acts like a route horse, it must be a route horse, right?
Actually, no, as trainer Dave Vance fully comprehended in March 2004. My Trusty Cat had won her first start that season, closing like a high-end real estate broker to win a sprint race at Oaklawn Park. Vance took the logical next step, stretching My Trusty Cat out to two turns in a stakes race.
Dance Away Capote, an easy winner of her last two races, and Isola Piu Bella, a two-time graded stakes winner already this season, are the star attractions on Saturday's program at Delaware Park.
Unfortunately for fans who would be thrilled to see the 3-year-old filly Dance Away Capote challenge the 5-year-old Isola Piu Bella, the two standout female distance runners are entered in separate stakes.
MIAMI - Anybody handicapping Saturday's $40,000 Band Is Passing Stakes at Calder must start by trying to decide which Final Prophecy will show up for the race.
Will it be the one who rallied from last to score a three-quarter-length victory over He's Crafty and Miesque's Approval in the Carterista Handicap earlier in the meet? Or will it be the horse who had dropped his previous five starts, including two under allowance conditions, since upsetting the Bonnie Heath Turf Cup here last fall?
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Waupaca has broadened his horizons. Once a horse that pretty much ran his races one way, on the lead, he recently has developed a new dimension - and it might serve him well as he tries to win beyond 1 1/16 miles for the first time Saturday in the $200,000 Dallas Turf Cup at Lone Star Park.
Waupaca is one of 11 older horses in the 1 1/8-mile turf race, which also attracted top contenders Crowned King, the 118-pound starting highweight; Major Rhythm, who invades from Arlington Park; and Fullbridled, an allowance winner from Hollywood Park.
If ever there was a race to draw a line through, it is High Strike Zone's trip in the Grade 3 Lone Star Park Handicap on May 30. His bridle broke during the race, and he and his jockey, Ricky Faul, were fortunate to get home safely, let alone finish fifth after dueling through fast fractions.
Saturday, will be back in action, this time at Louisiana Downs, as the 119-pound highweight in the $50,000 Ark-La-Tex Handicap.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Bobby Frankel, who has a division at Woodbine for Stronach Stable, will be the trainer of record for Wild Desert in next Sunday's $1 million Queen's Plate.
Wild Desert currently is at Monmouth Park with assistant trainer Larry Walters, who is overseeing a string there for Richard Dutrow Jr. Dutrow is serving a 60-day suspension, which began June 1, for medication violations in New York.
"He's going to get the horse back when his days are up," said Frankel.
Wild Wild West will be the 124-pound highweight where he faces 10 other Iowa-breds in Saturday's $70,000 Cyclones Handicap at Prairie Meadows.
Wild Wild West seized the lead among the statebreds here with an easy gate-to-wire victory in the six-furlong John Wayne on May 21. Wild Wild West, who goes for his fourth straight win Saturday, is the likely pacesetter as he stretches out to 1 1/16 miles in the Cyclones. In his only start at 1 1/16 miles last year Wild Wild West ran second, beaten 1 1/4 lengths, in the $65,000 Iowa Breeders' Derby here in August.
