Fair Grounds ended its 2019-20 season at the start of the global pandemic and begins its 2020-21 meet in the heart of it.
With COVID-19 racing through New Orleans, Fair Grounds cut short the season seven days from completion in late March. Horses and their caretakers were stranded at the track for weeks, unable to move on to spring jurisdictions until protocols could be enacted.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mark Casse ran one-two in Saturday’s Grade 2 Kennedy Road with Ride a Comet and Souper Stonehenge, while the favored Canadian champion sprinter Pink Lloyd finished a wide third.
Casse said Ride a Comet was sidelined with a bowed tendon twice after capturing the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby in 2018. When he returned from a two-year layoff here Oct. 16, the closer won a seven-furlong allowance nicely and was equally impressive when taking the six-furlong Kennedy Road with a career-high 95 Beyer Speed Figure.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Six of trainer Christophe Clement’s meet-leading 10 victories at the Aqueduct fall meet have come with 2-year-olds, giving him much to look forward to in 2021.
Perhaps Clement’s most impressive juvenile victory came Sunday when Brattle House, a filly he co-bred with Richard Leahy and who was purchased for $775,000 at auction by Larry Best’s OXO Equine, won a one-mile New York-bred maiden race by 5 1/4 lengths under Joel Rosario. Brattle House was assigned a 65 Beyer Speed Figure for her win.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Rafael Hernandez won the hotly contested Woodbine rider title by a 129-126 margin over Justin Stein, who had led the standings heading into last week.
The 2019 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice Kazushi Kimura went on a tear on the weekend and finished third with 83 wins. After notching two stakes wins on Saturday, he won three of Sunday’s six races.
Rounding out the top five were Emma-Jayne Wilson with 79 wins and Luis Contreras with 76 victories.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Large fields were the norm for the stakes drawn for Friday and Saturday at Del Mar, with 14 – including two also-eligibles – in the Grade 2, $200,000 Hollywood Turf Cup at 1 1/2 miles on Friday, and 13 in all three stakes Saturday.
Shippers Arklow and Laccario are among those in the Turf Cup.
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DEL MAR, Calif. – Mike Smith rode Life Is Good to his debut victory on Sunday with an old, small sheepskin-covered saddle owned by trainer Bob Baffert, who said it was the saddle he used during his brief stint as a jockey in Arizona 50 years ago.
The saddle was recently found by Baffert’s brother Bill, who was clearing out the family’s old home on a ranch near Nogales in advance of selling it following the passing of their parents in the past decade.
DEL MAR, Calif. – At the midpoint of the year, Midnight Bisou had finished second in the Saudi Cup and then returned to the United States to win the Fleur de Lis. McKinzie had won the Triple Bend and was being pointed to the Met Mile. Honor A. P. had won the Runhappy Santa Anita Derby and was a top contender for the Kentucky Derby.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jockeys John Velazquez, Joel Rosario, Irad Ortiz Jr., and Manny Franco will all be riding out of town this holiday week. Provided they ace all their COVID-19 tests upon returning, all should be able to ride the final week of the Aqueduct fall meet.
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Velazquez will be at Churchill Downs to ride Friday and Saturday. His primary reason for going is to ride Code of Honor in Friday’s Grade 1 Clark Stakes.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Gregg Sacco believes circumstances more than anything else have contributed to Mind Control losing his last five races. He caught sloppy tracks twice, and had a troubled trip in the Mr. Prospector at Monmouth and the Lafayette at Keeneland in his two most recent starts.
In his other defeat, he was beaten just 1 3/4 lengths by Volatile in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt at Saratoga.
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. – North Dakota, winner of Saturday’s Grade 3 Red Smith Stakes at Aqueduct, was one of seven horses trainer Shug McGaughey on Sunday shipped from New York to Florida, where they will get time off or be pointed to races early in the Gulfstream Park meet.
McGaughey hasn’t exactly decided in which category falls North Dakota. McGaughey does know he wants to keep North Dakota running at marathon distances, though the two-mile H. Allen Jerkens at Gulfstream on Dec. 26 isn’t what he has in mind.
