NEW ORLEANS - Liz on Polk Street is likely to add another score to red-hot trainer Wayne Catalano's Fair Grounds meet Friday in the $34,000 six-furlong featured allowance race. Catalano has a pair of wins and two places in five starts at Fair Grounds.
Liz on Polk Street is a 3-year-old A.P. Indy filly out of the good racemare Silver Buck. "She's a pretty nice filly," said Catalano. "She's run some very good races."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - A six-day span without turf racing in Southern California ends on Friday when two allowance races on turf are part of an eight-race program at Hollywood Park.
Wet weather led to the transfer of turf racing to the dirt on Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Friday's fifth and seventh races are run on turf and both have drawn decent fields. The fifth race is a $40,000 optional claimer for fillies and mares over 5 1/2 furlongs. The seventh race is a $39,000 allowance for California-breds at a mile.
Racing at Laurel Park will not return until after the new year because workers rebuilding the racing surfaces have encountered weather delays and continue to address problems with surface foundations.
Jim Gagliano, executive vice president of racing operations for the Maryland Jockey Club, which operates the track, said Tuesday that Laurel's dirt track could open for training Dec. 20, and after at least two weeks of training on it, Laurel could reopen for racing in January. That schedule was in effect pending a final inspection of the racing surface Wednesday.
Chris Evans, currently director of racing for the Woodbine Entertainment Group, has been appointed Woodbine's vice president of Thoroughbred racing.
The appointment was one of several organizational changes the track announced Wednesday. All take effect Jan. 1.
Evans will replace John Whitson, who is retiring. Evans was Woodbine's racing secretary from 1989 until being named director of racing last year.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Del Mar will distribute a retroactive purse increase of $1 million from its 2004 meeting in the next week. The retroactive payments amount to a 7 percent increase in overnight purses.
This is the second consecutive year in which Del Mar has retroactively increased purses. Last fall, Del Mar made a retroactive payment of $500,959. California tracks seldom increase purses during a meeting when business is good, preferring to make retroactive payments in support of all owners who raced at the meeting.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - After not training horses for nearly three years, Juan Serey is three months away from getting his career back.
Serey, the leading trainer in New York in 2000, had his license reinstated by the New York State Racing and Wagering Board on Tuesday. Before he can resume training, however, Serey must serve a 90-day suspension and pay a $2,000 fine for two medication positives dating back five years.
MIAMI - Jockey Cornelio Velasquez got off Second of June after working a mile in a sensational 1:41.48 at Calder on Wednesday and asked trainer Bill Cesare, "When is he going to run?"
That's a question a lot of people have been asking lately as Second of June continues to work toward his eagerly awaited return. Second of June was considered among the leaders of the 3-year-old division until he was sidelined by a fracture suffered during his second-place finish in Gulfstream Park's Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes on Feb. 14.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Bill Morey probably hopes Trickey Trevor doesn't set a track record in Friday's feature race at Golden Gate Fields.
Morey has twice seen horses of his set track records and get claimed in the same day.
He lost Smoke Til Dawn for $16,000 last Dec. 17, when the horse set the Golden Gate Fields track record of 1:07.45 for six furlongs. On Oct. 27, Trickey Trevor set a Bay Meadows track record of 56.01 seconds for five furlongs and was claimed for $32,000.
STICKNEY, Ill. - A trainer will point a horse to a race a couple of months away, sometimes more, if they're the type to take the long view. But the connections of Arizona Rose have been thinking of Saturday's $100,000 Pat Whitworth Illinois Debutante for two and a half years.
"How long have I pointed for this race? Since she was born," said Mike Weissman, who trains Arizona Rose for owner-breeder Richard Perkins. "How many hundred-thousands are there going to be for an Illinois-bred to run in?