OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Handicappers who look for horses with good past form on Aqueduct's inner track will be in a quandary as they examine Thursday's featured eighth race, an optional claimer with third-level allowance conditions that offers myriad possibilities.
The $48,000 route at 1 1/16 miles drew a field of eight fillies and mares, and three of them - Saintliness, Lady Libby, and Fond - won twice on the inner track last winter.
NEW ORLEANS - Jockey Robby Albarado, the defending riding champion at Fair Grounds, finished the second weekend of the meeting one victory short of the 3,000 career wins.
Albarado has an excellent chance of passing this milestone Thursday at Fair Grounds, where he is on live mounts in seven of the 10 races on the card. He will ride a pair of horses for trainer Neil Howard, including in the feature, a $30,000 allowance for 2-year-olds at a mile on the turf.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The closers Neblina and La Salle Glory could both be prominent at the end of Thursday's Woodbine feature, a six-furlong sprint for $80,000 optional claimers.
Neblina, a versatile 4-year-old trained by Roger Attfield, won her only race of the meeting in a seven-furlong, second-level allowance on the grass Aug. 19. She subsequently got a freshening, and was fourth behind future stakes winner Miss Grindstone in a tough $80,000 event on the main track Oct. 11.
ALBANY, Calif. - One race does not a career make. But if that one race is a debut victory, it can surely make a horse's career seem promising.
Three of the seven runners in Thursday's Golden Gate Fields feature have won their their only starts, and a fourth won her last start. A fifth, Queenmab'sdaughter, is also coming off a win, in a starter allowance race, and is the lone entrant in Thursday's six-furlong allowance race for 2-year-old fillies with two victories.
NEW ORLEANS - Trainer Josie Carroll was in an ebullient mood last Saturday as she stood by the paddock after the fifth race at Fair Grounds, a mile turf maiden special weight won impressively by Kalyptic. As she mapped out Kalyptic's distant future, the immediate plans of another horse in her stable were also on her mind.
"We're looking forward to running Mr. Sulu in the turf event on Louisiana Champions Day next Saturday," she said with a fleeting smile.
Keeneland Race Course on Tuesday released its stakes schedule for the 2005 spring meet with purse increases in five races, lifting the value of the stakes program to more than $4.1 million, not including added monies.
The most notable of the purse increases is on the Grade 2 Commonwealth Breeders' Cup, a seven-furlong race for older horses. The Commonwealth BC, to be run on the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes undercard on April 16, will be worth $400,000, up from $250,000 this year.
ALBANY, Calif. - One race does not a career make. But if that one race is a debut victory, it can surely make a horse's career seem promising.
Three of the seven runners in Thursday's Golden Gate Fields feature have won their their only starts, and a fourth won her last start. A fifth, Queenmab'sdaughter, is also coming off a win, in a starter allowance race, and is the lone entrant in Thursday's six-furlong allowance race for 2-year-old fillies with two victories.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Even the Score, the winner of two graded stakes during the Hollywood Park summer meeting, has resumed training in California after failing to attract significant interest as a stallion prospect in Kentucky, trainer Vladimir Cerin said.
Owned by Ro Parra, Even the Score returned to Cerin's stable at Santa Anita last week. Cerin said his goal is to have Even the Score back to the races during the upcoming Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, which begins Dec. 26.
"He breezed a little before he left," Kentucky, Cerin said. "I'm just happy to have him back."
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The 2004 Sovereign Award balloting, conducted by the Jockey Club of Canada, closed Monday, and the turnout was excellent.
Bridget Bimm, executive director of the JCC, reported Tuesday morning that 76 of 79 eligible voters had cast their ballots either by fax or online.
Approximately 38 percent of the voters used the online option, which was available for the first time this year.
Bimm said she plans to offer only online voting beginning with next year's awards.