HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Southwest could be one of the most important preps on this year’s road to the Kentucky Derby.
The Grade 3, $750,000 race will be run Feb. 15 at Oaklawn Park, and horses under consideration for the race include Essential Quality and Jackie’s Warrior, who are Eclipse Awards finalists for champion 2-year-old male of 2020, and Keepmeinmind, winner of the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs.
Bowies Hero, the winner of two Grade 1 races in a 28-race career, was euthanized on Monday from complications of laminitis, trainer Phil D’Amato said.
Bowies Hero was undergoing treatment at a Southern California veterinary clinic in recent weeks, following concern about an infection in his right foreleg. D’Amato said the 7-year-old horse had responded to recent treatment before his health took a recent turn for the worse.
“He had good days and bad days,” D’Amato said on Monday afternoon.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer John Kimmel won last Saturday’s $100,000 Franklin Square Stakes with longshot Secret Love. This Saturday, he will seek to win the $100,000 Jazil Stakes with likely favorite Mr. Buff.
Mr. Buff, the 7-year-old millionaire New York-bred gelding, has won the last two runnings of the Jazil, run at 1 1/8 miles over the main track. Mr. Buff finished last in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile on Dec. 5 and then came back a week later and finished second to Bankit in the Alex M. Robb Handicap versus New York breds.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Anyone without an interest in another horse in the race, parimutuel or otherwise, would find it difficult not to root for Sleepy Eyes Todd in Saturday’s $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational.
The paucity of older male dirt sprints on the Fair Grounds stakes schedule has opened a new world for the 5-year-old horse Manny Wah.
For lack of a dirt option, Manny Wah’s connections tried turf for the first time in the $100,000 Duncan Kenner Stakes on Saturday at Fair Grounds. Making his 31st start, Manny Wah loved it, roaring from last to first, winning going away, and earning a career-best 98 Beyer Speed Figure.
“He really looked great,” said Wayne Catalano, who trains Manny Wah for Susan Moulton. “The way he ran, we’ll probably keep him on grass.”
The morning after sending out odds-on favorites in two Fair Grounds 3-year-old dirt-route stakes, trainer Brad Cox put two even more accomplished 3-year-olds through a team workout on Sunday in New Orleans.
Essential Quality, who will be named champion 2-year-old colt of 2020 after capping an unbeaten season with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, went in company with Travel Column, who ended her year winning the Grade 2 Golden Rod in November at Churchill Downs.
Big Fish won the California Cup Derby on the dirt at Santa Anita on Saturday, and the Del Mar Juvenile Turf on the grass in September. For his next race, Big Fish might try to add a stakes win over a synthetic surface in the $100,000 El Camino Real Derby at 1 1/8 miles at Golden Gate Fields on Feb. 13.
“I don’t see why he couldn’t handle it,” trainer David Hofmans said Monday.
Brickyard Ride won his stakes debut in Saturday’s six-furlong California Cup Sprint at Santa Anita by controlling the race for California-breds through a wicked pace.
For his next start, Brickyard Ride might try to stretch his speed another quarter-mile in the $100,000 Tiznow Stakes for statebreds on Feb. 28. The mile distance of the Tiznow would equal the longest race of his career.
“It’s not out of the question that we could try it,” trainer Craig Lewis said on Monday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Third as the favorite behind Tax in the 1 1/16-mile Harlan’s Holiday at Gulfstream last month, Phat Man will be on a slight turn-back Saturday as the defending champion in the Grade 3 Fred W. Hooper, one of five graded stakes to be run in addition to the two Pegasus events. The Hooper is a one-turn mile.
On Sunday, Phat Man breezed three furlongs in 36 seconds at the Palm Meadows training center.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Zulu Alpha was something of an outsider last January in winning the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf at 11-1, so Mike Maker is hoping history can repeat itself when the $1 million race is run Saturday at Gulfstream Park for the third time.
Maker will send out the pair of Cross Border and Aquaphobia in the 1 3/16-mile Pegasus Turf, which is expected to get a capacity field of 12 when entries are drawn here Wednesday. Both figure to be similar odds as Zulu Alpha was last year.
