It was all Bernie Flint at Turfway Park, as Discreet Hero and Paging finished one-two for the track's all-time leading trainer in the $50,000 Tejano Run Stakes.
Discreet Hero, ridden by Justin Vitek, led all the way to win the
1 1/16-mile Tejano Run by 2 1/2 lengths over his stablemate. The Flint entry returned $4.40 to win and $5.20 to place as the favorite among five betting interests.
Lusty Latin again fired his best shot coming off a layoff, this time going wire to wire to win the $50,000 Harrison E. Johnson Memorial Handicap at Laurel.
Trained by Mark Shuman for owner Michael Gill, Lusty Latin had come back from a two-month break to win a nonwinners-of-two allowance at Saratoga. Saturday's Johnson Memorial was Lusty Latin's first race since he finished last of eight in the Charles H. Hadry at Pimlico in November.
CHICAGO - The key to the featured first race on Monday at Hawthorne might be buried in the third race on Saturday at Hawthorne, won by a longshot named Nothing But Cat. David McShane, hardly a household name in Chicago racing circles but a regular player each summer at Prairie Meadows, trains Nothing But Cat. He also trains a horse named Silver Fortune, who could sneak into a victory in Monday's feature, a second-level sprint allowance race for fillies and mares.
CHICAGO - As it turned out, nobody was going to beat favored Cat Tracker in the featured seventh race March 4 at Hawthorne, but the one who looked as if he could give Cat Tracker a battle, He's Hammered, never really got involved. As Cat Tracker drew away in the stretch, He's Hammered faded, while Coping turned in a decent run to finish second.
Which begs the question: How good was He's Hammered's blowout win here last December?
NEW ORLEANS - Rapid Proof came up the rail under a heady ride from Brian Hernandez Jr. to win Saturday's $500,000 by a head over A to the Z.
Dismissed at 31-1 in the betting despite finishing third in the prep race for the Muniz, the meet's top turf contest, Rapid Proof settled in sixth place going down the backstretch. Hernandez roused him into third in the stretch, and Rapid Proof then produced a final burst past A to the Z
NEW ORLEANS - Gold Storm lasted by a head over Ole Rebel in the $125,000 Duncan F. Kenner Breeders' Cup Handicap Saturday at Fair Grounds.
The premier sprint race for older horses on the Fair Grounds calendar, the six-furlong Kenner was one of three stakes on the Fair Grounds card.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Dixie Talking charged down the center of the track to upset the Grade 3, $109,800 at Aqueduct by 1 1/4 lengths over Acey Deucey. It was another 1 1/4 lengths back in third to Alfonsina.
Dixie Talking, who had won her first two starts, was sent off at 27-1 coming off a fifth-place finish in the Wide Country Stakes at Laurel last month. But her trainer, Robin Graham, said there was a reason for her poor performance that day.
"She had a reaction to the Lasix last time, that's what happened to her," Graham said. "Her electrolytes were imbalanced."
ARCADIA, Calif. - The decision to campaign Megahertz another year was both sporting and economically feasible. After owner Michael Bello and trainer Bobby Frankel figured the 6-year-old Megahertz could bang out another $500,000 on the track, it made sense to keep her in training.
Frankel explained that is only worth a certain amount of money as a broodmare, and Bello enjoys watching her run.
"She's a fresh horse," Frankel said. "She can make half what she's worth this year."
The earnings calculation, of course, is based on Megahertz actually competing in races.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Grade 1 winner was among the top 3-year-old fillies last winter at Santa Anita, but after being foiled in her last six starts and finishing a flat fifth March 12 in the Santa Margarita Handicap, she has been retired and sent to Kentucky to be bred to Storm Cat.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Dallas Stewart, who spends his winters at the Fair Grounds, went into the weekend with a strong chance of sweeping two stakes at Gulfstream Park, concluding with Molto Vita in Sunday's $100,000 Hurricane Bertie Handicap. The 6 1/2-furlong, Grade 3 dash drew a compact lineup of six fillies and mares.
