SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – There’s a brown wooden box with a slit in it on his desk that reads Stakes Nominations. It may be the only thing that has been in the racing office at the New York Racing Association longer than Andrew Byrnes.
“I said to myself in March, I’m taking that with me,” said Byrnes, NYRA’s stakes coordinator since 1999, who announced his retirement in January.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Friday’s workout tab over the Oklahoma turf course was a limited one, with many trainers canceling scheduled breezes due to morning showers. But there still was some star power amongst the approximately two dozen horses who did work, a list that included Grade 1 Arlington Million winner Fort Washington for trainer Shug McGaughey.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine has released a list of 18 nominees for the 29th running of the Grade 1, $1 million Woodbine Mile, the headliner on Turf Champions Day on Sept. 13.
Trainer Mark Casse nominated the speedy sophomore Mi Bago, Canadian champion My Boy Prince, and last year’s winner, Win for the Money, who recently shipped back to Woodbine off a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Fourstardave at Saratoga. Woodbine’s perennial leading trainer has won the Woodbine Mile three times.
Jockey Armando Aguilar has been suspended for four racing days for causing interference in the fifth race at Del Mar on Aug. 17.
Aguilar’s suspension covers Sept. 5-7, the final three days of the current Del Mar meeting, and Sept. 12, the opening day of the Los Alamitos September meeting.
Aguilar was cited for his ride aboard Harcyn, who won a $25,000 claiming race at five furlongs on turf at 40-1. In early stretch, Harcyn altered course, moving to his outside, which impeded Zoffarelli, who finished eighth of 10, beaten three lengths.
Arrowthegreat, winner of the $125,000 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs on Aug. 17, is likely to run in the $85,000 Tokyo City Cup at a mile at Santa Anita on Oct. 25 in his next start.
Trainer Dan Blacker said recently that the distance of the Tokyo City Cup is a deciding factor. Even slightly longer races are not ideal for Arrowthegreat, who has won 4 of 18 starts with all the wins at a mile in the last two years.
“We tried him farther, at a mile and a sixteenth, and he doesn’t fire,” Blacker said. “At a mile and an eighth, he’s not as good. He’s a miler.”
For much of the summer, Boss Sully was scheduled to be sent to Kentucky Downs for Saturday’s Grade 2 Turf Sprint and a chance to chase a $2 million prize.
As the race neared, however, trainer Brian Koriner reversed his decision. Boss Sully has remained in California for Saturday’s Grade 3 Green Flash Handicap at Del Mar, which is worth a mere $150,000.
Travel concerns and confusion regarding whether Boss Sully would gain a position in the field of 12 at Kentucky Downs factored into staying at Del Mar, Koriner said.
Beginning with Monday’s closing-day card at Saratoga, the New York Racing Association will implement penny breakage, a horseplayer-friendly measure that will result in all wagers placed on NYRA races being paid to the penny instead of the tiered breakage model that was previously in place.
The law permitting this was passed in the New York State budget signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May, with an effective date of Sept. 1.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Though Aye Eye is entered in Saturday’s $100,000 Sapling Stakes at Monmouth Park, he was cross-entered on Thursday for Monday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga and that is where he is expected to run, according to trainer Joe Orseno.
Why not?
Thoroughbred jockeys at Remington Park are refusing to be named on mounts at the track beginning with the overnight for the Sept. 4 card while negotiations continue on a new fee scale for losing mounts with the track’s horsemen’s group, according to officials.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Bob Baffert is not winning all the maiden races for 2-year-olds at Del Mar this summer.
Last Saturday, Intrepido, trained by Jeff Mullins, led throughout a maiden race for 2-year-olds at a mile to join the list of candidates for two-turn stakes this fall. Intrepido ($6.80) ran a mile in 1:35.71, earning a highly respectable Beyer Speed Figure of 84.
“We knew he was a two-turn horse all along,” Mullins said after the race.
