COLUMBUS, Neb. - A full field of 10 2-year-olds are set for the $10,000 Club House Special at the Columbus Races and nearly all of them will be trying six furlongs for the first time in their career.
Trainer Bill Conyers sends out Palladian as the likely favorite in this wide-open race. Palladian won his maiden at Prairie Meadows in late May and faced allowance
company there in his last two starts. Armando Martinez has the ride from post 4.
Sweet Macaroni did not let trainer Troy Young down. Young has had high hopes ever since purchasing Sweet Macaroni as a yearling for Five Star Stables last October, and she held up her end of the deal July 1 with a 5 1/4-length debut win at Louisiana Downs.
Fast forward seven weeks, and it's time for Sweet Macaroni to make her second career start. This time she will take on stakes rivals in the $50,000 Southern Belle. The 5 1/2-furlong race is restricted to 2-year-old fillies bred in Louisiana.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - My Lordship, who won her first four starts, all at Woodbine, before finishing third last Saturday, has been transferred from trainer Malcolm Pierce here to Bill Mott in New York.
My Lordship, a Kentucky-bred, had limited opportunities here, and the tentative plan calls for her to appear in Belmont's Grade 1, $250,000 Gazelle, a 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-old fillies on Sept. 11.
Owned and bred by Live Oak Plantation, My Lordship won her first two starts at 2, at seven furlongs on Nov. 1 and 1 1/16 miles three weeks later.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Trainers Chad Torevell, Ardell Sayler, and Tom Kinsella will each send out two entrants in Sunday's restricted $30,000 North Dakota Stallion Stakes for 2-year-olds at six furlongs. But it looks like trainer Emile Corbel has the one to beat in the field of eight in Your Excellence.
Your Excellence has won both his starts, defeating maiden special weight company on July 2 and then winning the restricted Frank Arnason Sire Stakes at Sunday's distance.
Vince Guerra, who has been aboard Your Excellence both times, will ride again from post 3.
MIAMI - Caller One, once among the premier sprinters in the world, worked five furlongs in 1:02.40 here Thursday and is expected to make his second start on the comeback trail within the next several weeks.
Caller One, a two-time winner of the Dubai Golden Shaheen, and with earnings of over $3.1 million already in the bank, returned from a 26-month hiatus to finish third in the two-furlong Rocket Man Stakes here on July 10. Now 7, he is currently trained by Laura Posada.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Forty Moves finds the right spot for her second Monmouth Park stakes win of the year in the $60,000 Miss Woodford on Sunday.
The six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies attracted a field of six.
Forty Moves, trained by Mark Hennig, has two wins and a third in her last three outings while earning consistent Beyer Speed Figures ranging from 82 to 84.
The one loss came in the off-the-turf Crank It Up Stakes, in which Forty Moves had the misfortune to square off against Forest Music.
Former Maryland-based jockey Abel Castellano Jr. didn't move his tack to Delaware Park until June 7. Despite missing the first month of the season, he has ridden well enough to rank eighth in the jockey standings with a record of 36-42-25 from 210 mounts.
Castellano, 20, the younger brother of New York jockey Javier Castellano, moved to Delaware hoping to increase his exposure to the racing industry.
It's easy to see why Maryland is considered the land of opportunity for novice riders. Nine of the last 30 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockeys began their careers at Pimlico and Laurel Park, including Hall of Famers Chris McCarron and Kent Desormeaux.
While there aren't any Eclipse Award candidates at Pimlico this summer, four apprentice riders are making an impact.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski's name has such an unusual spelling that people find it far easier to call him by nickname. Hence, Coach K.
That's why some racetrackers who hang with Chicago trainer Gene Brajczewski have taken to calling him "the Polish Plumber."
The unbeaten Cactus Ridge came to Ellis Park last year by way of his Chicago base and used a victory in the James C. Ellis Juvenile as a launching pad for a victory in the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Futurity.
Now Straight Line follows a similar path. Perfect in two starts at Arlington, he heads a 10-horse field for Saturday's $100,000 Ellis Juvenile.
Carded at seven furlongs, the race offers a distance between the short ones he has been running - five to 5 1/2 furlongs - and the route races that take up the bulk of the fall stakes calendar for 2-year-olds.