ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Accomplished turf specialist Silver Ticket will clash with Prince of Wales Stakes winner A Bit O'Gold at Woodbine on Sunday in the $500,000 Breeders' Stakes, the final leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.
The 1 1/2-mile turf event for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds heads an 11-race card, which also includes two other stakes, the $131,750 Nandi and the $104,000 With Approval.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - R Little Ruckus and Bosskiri, both victorious in their only start, are the only two winners in Sunday's $131,750 Nandi Stakes at Woodbine.
The six-furlong dash for Ontario-sired 2-year-old fillies is one of two supporting features on the 11-race Breeders' Stakes card, along with the $104,000 With Approval Stakes.
Walk This Way has won on dirt and turf, around one turn and two, but the seven furlongs he will travel Sunday in the $70,000 A.L. Erwin at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., might be a perfect fit for him.
"I think it will hit him dead in the head," said Patrick Mouton, who trains Walk This Way.
Fleeta Dif, who won two stakes during the recent Lone Star meet, heads a full field of 12 fillies and mares in the $40,000 Adena Springs Matchmaker Turf Sprint at Remington Park on Sunday. The winner of the five-furlong turf race is awarded a no-guarantee season to Milwaukee Brew, Alphabet Soup, or Gold Case.
CHICAGO - It is not like Bobby Frankel has something to prove at Arlington Park's International Festival of Racing. The International Festival includes three Grade 1 turf races, and Frankel has won them all. In 2002, he went 2 for 3, taking the Secretariat with Chiselling and the Million with Beat Hollow. Last year, the Frankel-trained Heat Haze won the Beverly D.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Vicente and Thresher didn't meet at Pleasanton on July 4.
They ran two races apart in a pair of five-furlong races, Vicente in a maiden race and Thresher in the Everett Nevin Alameda County Futurity. But their efforts in those two races tab them as the ones to beat Sunday against seven rivals in the $40,000-added Cavonnier Juvenile Stakes at the Sonoma County Fair.
Cavonnier, the 1996 Kentucky Derby runner-up who was raised minutes from the track, will be paraded at the track before the race.
Oh So Easy, one of the top Ohio-bred fillies of recent years, holds a strong class advantage over her seven rivals in Sunday's $40,000 Ms. Southern Ohio at River Downs in Cincinnati.
The Ms. Southern Ohio, traditionally run at 1 1/16 miles on turf, was switched to the main track before entries were taken Thursday. Turf racing was discontinued in the past week due to wear and tear on the backside of the course. The trouble spots are being sodded, according to racing secretary Ed Vomacka, and turf racing is expected to resume next weekend.
COLUMBUS, Neb. - Death Trappe should loom a heavy favorite to score his third stakes victory of the year when he heads a field of seven Nebraska-breds in the $15,000-added Amadevil Handicap at six furlongs.
Trained by Tom Garry, Death Trappe won the Ogataul Handicap at Fonner Park in March and most recently was a strong three-length winner of the Who Doctor Who Handicap at Horsemen's Park on July 17. Armando Martinez has the ride from post 2 under top weight of 122 pounds.
MIAMI - Excuses are a dime a dozen in this business, many of them more fiction than fact. But the two fillies, French Village and Tiz a Dancer, who will square off as the likely favorites in a field of six 3-year-old fillies in Sunday's $40,000 Snurb Stakes at Calder have legitimate excuses in their last start.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Catherine Day Phillips had some of relatively run-of-the-mill worries sending out A Bit O'Gold for the first two legs of the Canadian Triple Crown.
But Sunday's $500,000 Breeders' Stakes, at 1 1/2 miles on the turf, presents a more fundamental question, as A Bit O'Gold will be trying grass for the first time.
