FORT ERIE, Ontario - Layne Giliforte is no fan of the short sprints that dominate the Fort Erie cards the first three weeks of the meet.
"The four and a half furlong races [stink]," said Giliforte, the Fort's leading trainer in six of the past seven years. "All mine are ready to go more."
Giliforte moved his barn south during the long off-season here. During that stretch, he saddled 16 winners - 11 at Delta Downs, 4 at Sam Houston, and 1 at Tampa Bay.
ALBANY, Calif. - Chinese Dragon, an Irish import by way of Southern California, will be a heavy favorite in Sunday's $100,000 Alcatraz Breeders' Cup at Golden Gate Fields. Among the horses , who makes his turf debut.
The one-mile turf test is for 3-year-olds, and Chinese Dragon comes into the race having won four straight, including all three of his starts this year. He won the Pasadena and La Puente, both at Santa Anita, in his past two starts.
AUBURN, Wash. - Debbie's Assault did very well to run second at 9-1, beaten 2 1/4 lengths by Queenledo, in the U.S. Bank Stakes here on opening weekend. The six-furlong stakes for 3-year-old fillies, her first start of 2005, was effectively just the second race of Debbie's Assault's career, since she lost her rider at the start in her debut.
Even so, trainer Bob McMeans can't help but feel that she might have done even better.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The sensational Regal Red will be off for at least eight weeks, her trainer, Robbie Anderson, reported Friday morning. Regal Red would have been a heavy favorite to win her seventh straight stakes in the Sun Handicap on Saturday, but has been scratched.
"She came up with a saucer fracture," said Anderson. "It's basically a crack in the cannon bone. You treat it like a bucked shin, and if all goes well she should be able to come back to the races in a couple of months."
The fever that prevented Dance Away Capote from running in the May 6 Kentucky Oaks means her trainer, Graham Motion, will likely focus on the series of stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Delaware Park, which culminates in the $500,000 Delaware Oaks on July 16.
Motion said earlier this week that he's inclined to allow Dance Away Capote a little more time to recuperate rather than rush her to get ready for the Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico on Friday.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - T.H. Approval ran the best race of his career when he won the historic San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita last month.
Run over nearly 1 3/4 miles on turf, the race exemplified T.H. Approval's ability in turf marathons. Saturday, T.H. Approval, 4, will need a performance equal or better to win the $350,000 Jim Murray Memorial Handicap at Hollywood Park.
The Murray, run over 1 1/2 miles on turf, has drawn a stronger field. Of the nine entrants, seven horses have won or placed in graded stakes at 1 1/4 miles or farther on turf in the last year.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - A handicap division that is currently in a shambles totters forward Saturday at Hollywood Park, where eight older horses are entered in the Grade 2, $150,000 Mervyn LeRoy Handicap.
Want a household name? Rock Hard Ten may not run until Del Mar; Southern Image has neither breezed nor raced in a year. In their absence, an ordinary cast entered the Mervyn LeRoy. None has won a graded stakes, but Borrego has finished in the money often enough to land the role of 119-pound starting highweight.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - When Forest Grove arrived in California last fall after winning two minor turf stakes for trainer Todd Pletcher on the East Coast, the intent was to start him in stakes on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita.
Little did owners Aaron and Marie Jones and trainer Eoin Harty know at the time, but would develop into a promising sprinter on the main track.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Buzzards Bay, the Santa Anita Derby winner who finished fifth in the Kentucky Derby last weekend, returned to training at Santa Anita on Thursday and is being pointed for the $1 million Belmont Stakes on June 11, trainer Jeff Mullins said.
Buzzards Bay jogged two miles on Thursday. In the Kentucky Derby, Buzzards Bay was sent off at 46-1 and finished 6 1/4 lengths behind Giacomo after racing wide on both turns.
"I thought it was a good performance," Mullins said.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Didn't we do this six months ago?
The , part of the fall stakes program last October when Lone Star Park hosted the Breeders' Cup, will return to its traditional slot on Saturday.
The Grade 3, $300,000 race has drawn 12 horses from as far away as New York, California, and Kentucky, including Storm Surge, who picked up the first stakes win of his career on the Breeders' Cup undercard last year, when he won the $100,000 Lone Star Juvenile.
