ETOBICOKE, Ontario - There were no graded stakes on the schedule here at Woodbine over the last two weekends, but next Sunday's Grade 3 Duchess, a seven-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies, is shaping up as an interesting contest.
Heading the local candidates for the $150,000 Duchess is Blonde Executive, who is coming off a smashing score in the Passing Mood over seven furlongs yielding turf here July 28.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - Long Term Success, on the heels of a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 96 from an allowance win at Woodbine July 21, is poised to win his fourth consecutive race here in Sunday's $40,000 Blazing Sevens, an in-house stakes scheduled for seven furlongs on the turf.
To be eligible for the Blazing Sevens, a horse must have competed at least three times at the present meet. There is an extra $20,000 up for grabs for Canadian-breds.
Lone Star Park near Dallas will return to a single Thoroughbred meet format next year after holding two meets this year to accommodate its hosting of the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships on Oct. 30.
Dates for 2005 were awarded during a Texas Racing Commission meeting on Thursday. The calendar mirrors the one used by the state's tracks in 2003.
Lone Star was awarded 70 dates for Thoroughbreds from April 13 to July 17. The track also received a 33-date meet for Quarter Horses from Sept. 30 to Nov. 27.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - If something happens this weekend at Arlington Park to eclipse last summer's Arlington Million - duck.
Saturday's International Festival of Racing, featuring three Grade 1 stakes - the , Beverly D., and Secretariat - begins in the shadow of last year's Million, with Storming Home's spectacular last-second swerve. Jockey cum movie icon Gary Stevens wound up flat out on the turf course. Storming Home ran loose, then had his number taken down from first to fourth. The European star Sulamani got the candy.
Try writing the sequel to that.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - It was a weekday morning at Arlington in August 1995. Bobby Frankel had just been inducted into racing's Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, and he was wondering aloud whether his plaque ever would be updated to reflect future accomplishments.
Indeed, Frankel knew he still had plenty left to do. Later that week, he would get right to work on his post-induction career by winning the Grade 1 Beverly D. with eventual Eclipse Award champion Possibly Perfect.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Nobody can fairly say that Kitten's Joy will not have earned his way to the top of the 3-year-old turf division. Having already won six races over five different turf courses, Kitten's Joy can become the unassailed divisional leader Saturday, when he ventures to yet another track, Arlington Park, to make his Grade 1 debut in the $400,000 Secretariat Stakes.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Request for Parole enters Saturday's Grade 1 in the best form of his career, but the potential for a rain-soaked turf course at Saratoga has the horse's trainer, Stanley Hough, concerned.
If the forecast for an inch of rain on Friday holds true, it will add more moisture to an already soggy course.
"I don't want a soft course. A little give would be okay," Hough said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The defection of Ghostzapper from Saturday's $200,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap certainly makes things easier for Speightstown, but the Grade 2 sprint is no cakewalk.
Speightstown, whose three stakes wins this year make him a strong favorite in the Vanderbilit, will have to deal with early pace pressure from Mike's Classic and late challenges from Clock Stopper and Gators N Bears, who are in career-best form.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Success at Saratoga has been fleeting for Dallas Stewart the last three summers, during which he compiled a less-than-satisfying 7-for-84 mark.
This summer, however, Stewart is getting the best of the Spa, having already sent out three winners from the first 10 horses he has saddled. And Stewart says he believes he's far from finished.
