OZONE PARK, N.Y. – It’s been a while since trainer Bob Baffert traveled the New York route to the Triple Crown, but he is giving serious consideration to doing it this year.
Baffert plans to nominate a trio of 3-year-olds to the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham and is pointing Freedom Fighter to the one-turn mile race on March 6.
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ARCADIA, Calif. – The lessons being taught to Life Is Good, and a subtle but apparently effective equipment change, resulted in a far more settled performance in a workout Monday morning at Santa Anita, when the undefeated 3-year-old colt effortlessly worked five furlongs in 1:00.80.
Life Is Good went along so easily that clockers designated the work as breezing, which is given out rarely in California, as most works are labeled handily. Of the 137 works on Monday on both the main and training tracks, his was the only one so denoted.
ARCADIA, Calif. -- Friday morning, at the beginning of the race week at Santa Anita, jockey Flavien Prat was tied for fourth in the standings with 19 wins, seven fewer than leader Juan Hernandez.
By Monday evening, Prat led the standings with 30 wins, one more than Hernandez.
Prat could be well clear in the standings very soon.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Rudy Brisset said Monday he is leaning toward running Tarantino in the Feb. 27 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream after the Pioneerof the Nile colt breezed a half-mile Sunday in 49.40 seconds at Palm Meadows in his first work since finishing second at 26-1 in the Jan. 30 Holy Bull.
“Right now I am 60-40 toward running at Gulfstream,” said Brisset. “He will work one more time and I will school him in the paddock. If I think we need another week, we will wait for Tampa” for the March 6 Tampa Bay Derby.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – For all his four-plus decades in racing, Rusty Arnold has never run a horse in Dubai. That could well change next month if Arnold goes through with tentative plans to run his turf-sprint star Leinster in the $1 million Al Quoz at Meydan.
Leinster, third as the favorite last fall in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, won his 6-year-old debut Saturday at Gulfstream Park when along late to nail front-running High Crime by a neck in the Grade 3 Gulfstream Turf Sprint.
The front-running victory Saturday by odds-on The Goddess Lyssa in the $50,000 Minaret at Tampa was her first in a stakes and now has trainer Gerald Bennett mulling his options with a 4-year-old filly who cost her owner, Mary Thomas of Team Equistaff, a mere $10,000 nearly two years ago.
“I prefer to look around here first, but obviously sometime down the road we have to look at sending her against a little better caliber,” said Bennett.
After all turf races were moved to the main track last weekend because of heavy rain, officials at Tampa Bay Downs have made the preemptive call to delay their upcoming Turf Sprint Showcase Day by 24 hours.
The $100,000 Turf Dash and its filly-mare counterpart, the $100,000 Lightning City, both will be run Sunday at Tampa in Oldsmar, Fla., instead of Saturday, as was originally scheduled. Entries for both five-furlong turf races will be drawn Thursday.
Trainer Tom Amoss had three horses in Saturday’s Rachel Alexandra Stakes and an entrant in the Risen Star, none of whom distinguished themselves on the day, but Amoss still could have runners for the Fair Grounds Oaks and the Louisiana Derby.
Clairiere and Travel Column are tied one apiece, with Travel Column running down Clairiere in the Golden Rod Stakes last fall at Churchill Downs, and Clairiere running down Travel Column on Saturday in the Rachel Alexandra. Both 3-year-old fillies are likely starters March 20 in the Fair Grounds Oaks, and if things go as their connections hope, they’re likely to meet again in the Kentucky Oaks.
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They were first, second and third in the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 16 and one-two-three this past Saturday in the Risen Star, and Mandaloun, Proxy, and Midnight Bourbon stand a good chance of meeting again March 20 at Fair Grounds in the $1 million Louisiana Derby.
Mandaloun won Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star by 1 1/2 lengths over Proxy, who also had been second in the Lecomte. Midnight Bourbon won the Lecomte, going wire to wire, and after chasing Risen Star pacesetter Rightandjust finished third on Saturday.
