PORTLAND, Ore. - Trainer Sam Dronen has a new plan for Freedom Fair, who pulled off a stunning $63 upset over some of the quickest sprinters on the grounds in a five-furlong invitational handicap here last Sunday.
From now on, the trainer intends to run Freedom Fair as short as he can.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - It was a race that all who saw will never forget: Chindi barreling down the Oaklawn stretch in his debut as an 11-year-old on Feb. 5 to top a good field of horses. It was an awesome sight, and one that his trainer, Steve Hobby, hopes he will be seeing again later this meet at Oaklawn.
Chindi, the white stretch-running son of El Prado, is one of the most popular horses in the Midwest. He launched his career on March 15, 1997, winning his debut in a maiden claiming race at Oaklawn.
NEW ORLEANS - Trainer Steve Flint has decided against pointing Gigawatt to the New Orleans Handicap and will run him back on turf instead, perhaps as early as next week in the $125,000 Fair Grounds Breeders' Cup Handicap at 1 1/8 miles on the grass.
"I think he's a better horse on grass," Flint said from his barn at Fair Grounds Friday morning. "He had his own way in the Louisiana Handicap, but I had a bad feeling going into the Mineshaft Handicap with him."
Gigawatt finished fourth in last Saturday's Grade 3 Mineshaft, which was won by the Nick Zito-trained Wanderin Boy.
One of the great things about racing is what it gives back to the people who devote their lives to it. There may be no better example than Dave MacLean.
MacLean recently returned to Kentucky for what he sadly concedes might be one final hurrah. MacLean, who began training horses in 1986 and who for six years in the 1990's was the private trainer for the powerful Richard Duchossois stable in Illinois, is suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer.
"I just want to finish doing what I love doing," said MacLean, 48.
The $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup will revert to a handicap this year for the first time since 1996, Hollywood Park announced on Friday.
The track released the stakes schedule for its 2005 spring-summer meeting, to run from April 22 to July 17.
The Grade 1 Gold Cup, to be run on July 9, was changed from a weight-for-age race to a handicap to make it more competitive with other handicap races around the country, according to Hollywood Park racing secretary Martin Panza.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The Canadian International will offer a record purse of $2 million this year, an increase of $500,000, while its companion feature, the E.P. Taylor Stakes, has been upped by $250,000 to $1 million.
The boosts for the Canadian International and E.P. Taylor, both Grade 1 turf races, are the highlights of the 2005 stakes calendar announced Thursday by Woodbine Entertainment. The schedule includes 101 stakes totaling $21.4 million over the course of the 167-day meeting, which begins April 16.
The invaders come in loaded for bear for Sunday's $54,400 Czaria Handicap at Sunland. The six-furlong event for fillies and mares attracted a field of eight, and most of the focus figures to be on two horses, each coming from a different direction.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The Graded Stakes Committee saw fit to elevate the Shirley Jones Handicap from Grade 3 to Grade 2 status for the first time this winter. Little did the committee know the seven-furlong fixture for fillies and mares would draw a Grade 1-caliber field right off the bat, with Society Selection and Madcap Escapade each using the $150,000 Shirley Jones to launch her 4-year-old campaign Saturday at Gulfstream Park.
