INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Quintons Gold Rush, the winner of the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland in April, may start in the $100,000 Sir Beaufort Stakes on turf at Santa Anita on Dec. 26 instead of the $250,000 Malibu Stakes on dirt the same day, trainer Mike Mitchell said.
Mitchell said that he has yet to finalize plans with owners Satish Sanan and Jay Manoogian, but that he would prefer to start Quintons Gold Rush on turf.
MIAMI - Seven-time British riding champion Kieren Fallon will switch his tack to south Florida after Christmas and plans to ride regularly this winter at Gulfstream Park.
Fallon, 39, will have his riding engagements handled in the U.S. by jockey agent Ron Anderson, who also works for Hall of Fame rider Jerry Bailey.
"Kieren will be here the day after Christmas and will ride a horse for [trainer] Pat Byrne in the Tropical Park Derby at Calder on New Year's Day," Anderson said. "He said he just thought it was time for a change."
Churchill Downs has released the dates for the three pools in the 2005 Kentucky Derby Future Wager, the win-only parimutuel wager that will offered for the seventh consecutive year.
Dates for the four-day pools (Thursdays through Sundays) are: Pool 1, Feb. 10-13; Pool 2, March 10-13; and Pool 3, April 7-10.
The 131st Derby will be run on May 7 at Churchill.
Three futures pools for the Kentucky Oaks, to be run for May 6, will be conducted during the same dates.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Early speed is a potent weapon on Aqueduct's inner dirt track, but a race can set up nicely for a stalker when there are several speed burners in front of him, and that appears to be the scenario for Gators N Bears in Sunday's 46th running of the Grade 3 Gravesend Handicap, the final graded stakes of the year in New York.
NEW ORLEANS - Mountain General, who owns the track record at six furlongs, and Wildcat Shoes, who lost the Thanksgiving Day Handicap by a nose in his last start, meet again Sunday at Fair Grounds in an optional claiming race at six furlongs.
, winner of the Sugar Bowl Handicap last year at Fair Grounds, ran a winning race in the Thanksgiving, but just got caught on the wire by the fast-closing Ole Rebel.
ALBANY, Calif. - Gotta Go Gal, a 2-year-old filly claimed for $16,000, faces Southern California invader Cee's Irish in the $50,000-added Corte Madera Stakes on Sunday at Golden Gate Fields.
Gotta Go Gal drew post 7 and Cee's Irish, the likely favorite, drew post 8.
Trainer Jerry McArthur gives owner Charles Lo credit for claiming Gotta Go Gal.
"Charles spotted her the first time she raced at Fresno," said McArthur. "We put her on a list to watch."
McArthur said Gotta Go Gal's breeding made her even more attractive.
NEW ORLEANS - The claim game is alive and well at Fair Grounds, where 46 horses have changed barns in the first 13 days of the meet for a collective tag of $794,500. Gamaliel Vazquez, who trains for the nation's leading owner, Michael Gill, had claimed 14 horses as of Thursday at the Fair Grounds meet, forking over $351,000 for a collection of horses ranging from the cheapest level, the $5,000 gelding Wings of Jones, to optional allowance-level players Chilling Effect, Bay Marvel, and Distinct Vision, each claimed for $40,000.
STICKNEY, Ill. - Go to a major race meet in the spring or summer, and a lower-level allowance race is a stair on a ladder, a portal of hope for an eager owner.
At Hawthorne in winter, however, the stepladder metaphor often used to describe allowance conditions breaks down. High-quality young horses on the rise don't often come around here. Reformed claimers and claimers to be comprise the bulk of Hawthorne allowance races in December. Get a horse on the right track, even a horse of middling quality, and you're liable to knock out an allowance condition or two.
Rocky Gulch will top the $500,000 mark in earnings on Sunday if he prevails in the $104,300 Albert Dominguez Memorial Handicap for New Mexico-breds at Sunland Park. The 3-year-old Rocky Gulch spots older rivals 7 to 12 pounds as the 124-pound highweight
