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
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Wilko, the winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, was found to have a quarter crack in his left front foot on Friday, the day before a scheduled start in Saturday's Grade 1 .
Trainer Craig Dollase said that Wilko was "95 percent" likely to start in the Hollywood Futurity, where he could clinch the Eclipse Award for outstanding 2-year-old with a victory.
Dollase said the quarter crack was diagnosed after Wilko returned from a gallop on Friday morning. Dollase said the foot would be soaked and patched on Friday.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It has been nearly three months since the connections of Declan's Moon decided to bypass the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and instead wait for Hollywood Park's fall stakes races, the Prevue and the Futurity. Since then, "everything's just gone totally according to schedule, which is rare," said Ron Ellis, who trains Declan's Moon.
Declan's Moon won the Prevue handily, then came back to work to Ellis's satisfaction.
"The race worked out like we hoped, in terms of the type of race he ran, and the way he came out of the race," Ellis said.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Trainer John Shirreffs played the role of upsetter last weekend, when Hollywood Story won the Grade 2 Bayakoa Handicap at Hollywood Park.
This weekend, Shirreffs will have the same role in lucrative races over 1 1/16 miles when Giacomo starts in Saturday's $449,500 and Kenza runs in Sunday's $300,000-estimated Hollywood Starlet. Both horses are owned by Jerry and Ann Moss.
Both starters deserve respect, particularly Kenza, who placed third in a division of the Miesque Stakes on turf last month.
MIAMI - Trainer Graham Motion had modest expectations for his two long-distance grass specialists in this year's Breeders' Cup but came way with a win in the Turf with Better Talk Now and a second-place finish in the Filly and Mare Turf with Film Maker.
On Saturday, Motion brings three other of his long-distance grass specialists to Calder, where the prospects look bright for Dr. Brendler in the $200,000 and Humaita in the $200,000 La Prevoyante Handicap. Motion will also start Colonial Bay in the McKnight.
MIAMI - Which Medallist will show up for Saturday's $100,000 Kenny Noe Jr. Handicap at Calder? Will it be the one who earned Beyer Speed Figures of 110 and 112 winning the Grade 2 Dwyer and Grade 3 Withers Stakes earlier this year? Or the same horse who has been beaten a combined 40 lengths in his last three starts?
Even trainer Allen Jerkens is not sure what to expect from Medallist, one of many contenders in a strong field of sprint specialists for the seven-furlong Kenny Noe.
