OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Todd Pletcher will be losing many of his top sprinters to retirement at year's end. He appears to have at least one solid replacement.
Friendly Island is a supremely talented New York-bred sprinter. He will get his sternest test to date Thurs-day, when he faces open stakes company for the first time in the $100,000 Fall Highweight Handicap at Aqueduct. The Grade 3 event, run at six furlongs, kicks off NYRA's HolidayFest weekend consisting of six stakes.
MIAMI - Trainer Sandra Slivka will be hoping lightning can strike a second time if Stormy Rosa makes her turf debut, as planned, in Saturday's $100,000 Frances Genter Stakes.
Last month, Slivka put her other top 3-year-old filly, Hopelessly Devoted, on grass for the first time in the Calder Oaks and was rewarded with a 2 3/4-length victory. Stormy Rosa, whom Slivka claimed for $25,000 last winter at Gulfstream Park, does not have quite the back class or the experience of Hopelessly Devoted, but she is at the top of her game after winning her last three starts.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The once-beaten Roving Angel will try to rebound from the drubbing she took in the Grade 2 Astarita when she starts Sunday in the $136,875 Glorious Song Stakes, a seven-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies.
Roving Angel defeated the talented Victorious Ami when she won her debut in August, but she was scratched at the gate when in against males in the Sept. 6 Silver Deputy Stakes. Four days later, she won a six-furlong allowance in a romp, and then captured the Finger Lakes Juvenile Filly Stakes by 7 1/4 lengths.
Major Rhythm returns to Remington Park on Sunday for the first time since setting a course record in the $125,000 DeBartolo Memorial in September, and the field he will encounter in the $50,000 Remington Green seems even deeper than the cast he defeated in his last trip to Oklahoma City.
STICKNEY, Ill. - There is no real featured race Sunday at Hawthorne, just tangle after tangle, knot after knot of difficult handicapping. The puzzles begin in the first race and run right through the two allowance races on the nine-race program: the seventh, an open entry-level allowance, and the eighth, a second-level allowance restricted to statebreds.
ALBANY, Calif. - Milestones have become a way of life for Hall of Fame jockey Russell Baze, but his latest caught him totally unaware Thursday at Golden Gate Fields.
Baze rode four winners, including the final three races of the day, and moved past Pat Day into third place on the all-time career victory list. Baze ended the day with 8,772 victories, one more than Day, who picked up one win himself on Thursday at Churchill Downs.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Texcess is making a late-season push for the California-bred 2-year-old male championship, a title he can clinch with a victory in the $1 million Delta Jackpot Stakes at Delta Downs in Louisiana on Dec. 4.
Since making his debut with a second in the Barretts Juvenile Stakes at Fairplex Park on Sept. 19, Texcess has won consecutive starts in the $125,000 Califor-nia Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita on Oct. 16 and an allowance race at Hollywood Park last Sunday.
Texas and turf apparently did not agree with Sandias Peppermint, but he appears to be back in his element as he carries high weight of 120 pounds against 11 other juveniles in Red Hedeman Mile at Sunland Park. The $125,000 event is for New Mexico-bred 2-year-olds at one mile.
Bruce on the Loose will try to rebound from his second in the Indiana Futurity on Nov. 7 when he heads a field of nine in Sunday's closing day feature, the $40,000 Indiana Stallion Stakes.
A six-furlong race, the Indiana Stallion is for 2-year-olds sired by registered Indiana stallions.
Bruce on the Loose, trained by Robert Lester, was sent off at 4-5 in the Futurity and carried a three-length lead to midstretch. He continued on willingly but could not hold off the late-closing Snack and settled for second, beaten a half-length.
Brent's Challanger returns from a 10-week layoff in Sunday's $40,000 Ruff/Kirchberg Memorial Handicap for Ohio-breds at Beulah Park.
Brent's Challanger faded to finish ninth in the 1 1/4-mile Governor's Buckeye Cup at Thistledown on Sept. 6 and has been rested since by his owner-trainer, Lori Grace.
During the summer, Brent's Challanger had a three-race winning streak that culminated with a victory in the $45,000 Gendelman Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile race over the turf at River Downs. That win makes him the only member of the Ruff/Kirchberg field with a stakes victory in 2004.