The owner Kaaren Biggs and trainer Steve Wren, who won last year's $1 million Delta Jackpot with Mr. Jester, could have two colts in the Delta Jackpot this year on Dec. 4 at Delta Downs.
Wren said plans will become firmer after Sunday when the undefeated Western Acres and his entrymate Silver Haze run in the $75,000 MEC Juvenile at Remington Park.
"If they both run a credible race, we'd run them both in the Jackpot," said Wren.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Funny how perception often differs from reality. With the recent root-system problems of Aqueduct's turf course, one would have expected less grass racing through the first three weeks of the meet compared to last fall, but that has not been the case. Through the first three weeks last year, 13 turf races were run, but this year the total is 19, even with last week's rain.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Kentucky weather is cooling down, but as often has happened at recent fall meets at Churchill Downs, trainer Carl Nafzger is just now getting hot.
Nafzger won with two first-time starters here Saturday and has had the most active stable at this meet, surpassing even the output of Dale Romans and Steve Asmussen. Coming into the penultimate week of racing at the Churchill fall meet, Nafzger had 33 starts, three more than Romans and Asmussen.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Before post positions were drawn for the best race Thursday at Hollywood Park - a main-track two-turn allowance - trainer Ron McAnally said he felt lucky that Gondolieri was eligible for the race.
"It's either run here, or in a stakes," he said.
Is there a difference?
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Greg Gilchrist is downplaying the chances of Danny Dingle in Thursday's feature at Golden Gate Fields.
That's bad news for Danny Dingle's seven rivals in the first-level allowance race for 2-year-olds at six furlongs.
"He's probably no better than the third choice in there," said Gilchrist, who last week proclaimed that Frisco Belle, winner of Sunday's Star Ball Handicap, was overmatched and needed at least one more race under her belt to be at her best.
Danny Dingle only has the third-best Beyer Speed Figure in the field.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Tetherette will take on the boys while returning from a layoff in Thursday's second race at Woodbine, a six-furlong allowance for Ontario-sired runners.
Tetherette, a 4-year-old owned in part by trainer Bruce Pollock, took plenty of cracks at the non-winners-of-two allowance category. She hit the board in both of her starts in August after flashing her customary early speed.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Declan's Moon pummeled a good older horse in a team workout Tuesday morning at Hollywood Park, blazing five furlongs in 58.80 seconds and looking like a genuine odds-on favorite for the Grade 3 Hollywood Prevue on Saturday. The seven-furlong Prevue is the first start for Declan's Moon since a Sept. 8 victory in the Del Mar Futurity, and trainer Ron Ellis left nothing to chance in the 7:30 a.m. work. He said it was the first time Declan's Moon had worked in company and only the second time jockey Victor Espinoza has been on his back.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Shaconage, already a two-time graded stakes winner over the Churchill Downs turf course this year, was one of a handful of horses prepping for the coming weekend stakes when she breezed a half-mile Tuesday morning in 50.60 seconds over a grass course rated good.
Shaconage, sixth in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf in her last start, will be among the favorites Saturday when the Grade 3, $150,000 Cardinal Handicap is run for the 31st time. Shaconage won the Argent Mortgage and Locust Grove at the spring meet for trainer Mitch Shirota.
The 2-year-old Leaving on My Mind, who has earned close to $300,000, will try to complete a difficult but rewarding double over the next several weeks. Trainer Danny Pish said Tuesday he planned to start Leaving on My Mind in the $150,000 Sam Houston Texan Juvenile at Sam Houston on Saturday and also the $1 million Delta Jackpot at Delta Downs on Dec. 4.
Before Leaving on My Mind's five-length victory in the Nov. 6 Jean Lafitte, the $100,000 prep for the Jackpot, Pish said it was possible that the horse would make one more start leading up to the Jackpot.
CHICAGO - In the spring of 2003 at Fair Grounds, there were a couple promising 3-year-old fillies residing in the barn of trainer Bret Calhoun. They were linked by name, Afternoon Dreams and Rebridled Dreams, and in the Grade 2 Silverbulletday Stakes that year the two finished second and third.
