NEW ORLEANS - Wooden Phone, a multiple graded-stakes winner who has been sidelined since August 2003, is in training at Fair Grounds under the care of Bret Calhoun and is expected to return to the races in the coming weeks.
The 8-year-old gelding, owned by James and Marilyn Helzer and Tom Durant, won the Grade 2 Strub Stakes at Santa Anita in 2001 and the Grade 2 San Pasqual Handicap in 2002 while in trainer Bob Baffert's barn.
ALBANY, Calif. - Art Sherman scored the 1,500th training victory of his career when Mountain Mustang ($5) won the sixth race at Golden Gate Fields on Thursday.
The 67-year-old Sherman came to the track 51 years ago working for Rex Ellsworth. He traveled with Ellsworth's Swaps to the Kentucky Derby and the famous match race with Nashua.
After a 22-year riding career, he retired and served for a year as an assistant to Paul Guidotti and later worked briefly as a racing official before taking out his training license in 1979.
Stewards at Delta Downs and the Louisiana State Racing Commission are conducting an investigation to determine whether the horse who ran as Swim Easy in last Saturday's seventh race at Delta was actually a different runner from the barn of Swim Easy's trainer, Kearney Segura.
Judy Dugas, the state steward at Delta, confirmed that the investigation centered on the identity of the horse who raced as Swim Easy, but said that she could not discuss the incident further pending the outcome of the investigation.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Bill Morey hasn't achieved a win rate of over 20 percent the past two years by running horses in the wrong spots.
And though the Morey-trained Fancy M.D. seems up against it on paper in Saturday's Golden Gate Fields feature, it would be wise to give him a long look in the $25,000 optional claimer at five furlongs.
Morey has seen Fancy M.D. win for tags of $12,500 and $16,000 since claiming him for $8,000 on Oct. 9. Morey had claimed the gelding once before and lost him for $10,000.
OLDSMAR, Fla. - Beautiful Honor, who turned in one of the most impressive performances of the new meeting last out Dec. 18, moves back into stakes company Saturday, when she tops a field of 14 fillies and mares in the $60,000 Minaret Stakes at six furlongs.
Maysville, who has been in front at every call while winning her two career starts by a combined 17 1/4 lengths, makes her stakes debut in Saturday's $50,000 Marshua at Pimlico.
The six-furlong sprint for 3-year-old fillies attracted a field of six.
, an $85,000 purchase at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky sale in July 2003, began her career for trainer Mike Pino in a $25,000 maiden claiming race at Delaware Park in November. Luckily for owner Daniel Ryan, nobody filled out a claiming slip for Maysville, who romped by 15 1/2 lengths.
The names fairly jump off page 76 of the Turfway Park record book. The Turfway Prevue, the $50,000 race that will be run Saturday, has been surprisingly productive in recent history, with Perfect Drift, Champali, Personal First, and Kimberlite Pipe having used it as a springboard toward graded stakes success.
GROVE CITY, Ohio - Beulah Park is gambling on the weather in an effort to lure simulcast dollars as it begins its 75-day winter-spring meeting Saturday afternoon.
Beulah has front-loaded its racing days for the meeting, which concludes May 7, scheduling five days per week in January and February. The move is an attempt to take advantage of the lack of other tracks running nationwide during that time. One potential problem for the central Ohio track is the harsh winter weather that may force cancellations.
Legs O'Neal, who has been chasing top-class Louisiana-bred Happy Ticket, finally gets away from that one Saturday night in a competitive edition of the $50,000 Camelia at Delta Downs in Vinton, La.
The seven-furlong race will be run around two turns, and it is restricted to fillies and mares bred in Louisiana. Others in the race include stakes winners Kylers Midge and Misty Glo, and wire-to-wire threat Where Is My Daddy.
Cat's Cat won the last time she raced six furlongs on dirt - in 2002. She will get back to those conditions Saturday night in the $40,000 San Felipe at Sam Houston Race Park. The race for fillies and mares drew nine, including leading contenders Racing Sundown, Joyce Ann, So Sorry, and Questionable Past.