AUBURN, Wash. - Trainer Joe Toye will saddle two in Sunday's feature race at Emerald Downs, a mile claiming race for $20,000 fillies and mares, and the way Toye has been going, bettors have to take both seriously.
Toye has won with 7 of his 17 starters, most of whom arrived here fit and ready after campaigning at Turf Paradise. That description also fits Bobbie Wagner and Darling Silver, who will race uncoupled Sunday because of separate ownership.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Can any of the six other horses that entered the $40,000 Emerald Downs Handicap at Hastings Sunday beat the talented 3-year-old filly Slewpast? Probably not if she runs her usual race. And from the way Slewpast looked in her two works since easily winning the Supernaturel Stakes May 8, she is going to be very tough to beat in the 6 1/2-furlong feature.
Slewpast, who is trained by Robbie Anderson, is going for her fourth straight stakes win. And like her stablemate Regal Red in 2004, she has dominated her opponents.
CALGARY, Alberta - R Lucinda, second to Rumbeau Ruckus in the six-furlong Mount Royal here May 8, will be favored in Sunday's one-mile Lilac for 3-year-old fillies.
Trainer Stu Simon will saddle both R Lucinda, who led inside the sixteenth pole in the Mount Royal after a three-wide bid, and Kathern's Kat, who put in a dull effort as the favorite that day.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Many people may be down on Ashado after she was beaten three-quarters of a length by the unheralded Silmaril in the Pimlico Distaff on May 20. Trainer Todd Pletcher is not one of them.
While naturally disappointed that Ashado lost - her second loss of the year - Pletcher said that according to the speed figures he uses, the Distaff was the second-fastest race Ashado has ever run. Last year's Cotillion, a race Ashado won before winning the Breeders' Cup Distaff, was her fastest, Pletcher said.
ELMONT, N.Y. - A horse stabled on the Belmont Park backstretch has been put in isolation after she "exhibited signs suggestive of possible strangles," according to New York Racing Association chief veterinarian Celeste Kunz.
The horse, Lady Libby, trained by Steve Kappes, was isolated in a stall near the detention barn. All 59 horses stabled in Belmont's Barn 60, where Lady Libby was stabled, have been quarantined. Those horses will be prohibited from racing or training for the foreseeable future.
The New York Racing Association had steep declines in both attendance and handle during the 83-day winter/spring meet that ended May 1.
Daily average ontrack handle was down 15 percent, from $1,288,311 to $1,094,629. That includes money wagered on incoming simulcasts. Ontrack handle on Aqueduct's races only was down 17.4 percent, from $767,221 to $633,496.
All sources total average handle was down 10.4 percent, from $8,663,317 to $7,765,246.
Ontrack attendance dropped 18 percent, from a daily average of 3,874 to 3,178.
Officials at Calder Race Course have placed one of its barns under quarantine for precautionary measures because of a suspected case of neurological equine herpes.
The afflicted horse is an unraced 2-year-old who came to the track within the last month from a farm in Ocala, Fla. According to the track's veterinarian, Dr. Mary Scollay, the horse had been purchased out of the same Ocala Breeders' Sales auction as some of the horses recently found to have herpes at Churchill Downs.
MIAMI - Trainer Marty Wolfson toyed with the idea of trying his handicap star Pampered Princess on the turf. He even has gone so far as to enter her in Sunday's Sara's Success Stakes on the turf, along with stablemate Covincing. But barring rain, Pampered Princess will stay in the barn and any grass experiment will wait for another day.
Based on their records over several seasons, it ought to be obvious why Fuzzy Star and He's a Mystery should only run at Delaware Park.
Fuzzy Star, a 6-year-old, is now 6 for 16 over Delaware's main track but 0 for 14 elsewhere following his half-length victory in a $35,000 claiming race last Saturday.
He's a Mystery, a 5-year-old gelding, is 7 for 16 at Delaware but 0 for 11 elsewhere after he got up by a neck in a one-mile race for $10,000 claimers last Sunday.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - High Strike Zone will attempt to become just the second horse to win both the Texas Mile and Lone Star Park Handicap, the two richest races for older horses at Lone Star Park. Dixie Dot Com won both races in 2001.
High Strike Zone accomplished the first half of the double last month, when he won the Grade 3, $300,000 Texas Mile. Monday, he will look to complete the task in the Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap, one of six stakes worth $1 million on the annual Lone Star Million Day.
