OCEANPORT, N.J. - The $1 million Haskell is not the only large pot on the line Sunday at Monmouth Park.
Monmouth bolstered Haskell Day with six supporting stakes, each worth $100,000. It will be the richest undercard ever offered on New Jersey's biggest racing day.
Two of the stakes are Grade 3 turf contests, the Oceanport Handicap and the Matchmaker for fillies and mares.
Sprinters go in the Regret for fillies and mares and the Teddy Drone.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Victory Encounter has already won two stakes this year, including the Grade 1 Vanity Handicap, but Sunday's $300,000 Clement Hirsch Handicap at Del Mar may be her most important start of the year.
A win would justify a start in the Breeders' Cup Distaff at Lone Star Park on Oct. 30. A loss would be her second consecutive defeat against top company and could lead owner Tom Mankiewicz and trainer John Sadler to reassess their goals for Victory Encounter, who is 4.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Is Razen Hazen simply a horse for the course and therefore the one to beat in Friday's $40,000-added James F. Lyttle Memorial Handicap at the Sonoma County Fair on Friday?
The 3-year-old gelding made his debut at the fair last year, winning a $32,000 maiden claiming event. He came back the next week to win the Cavonnier Juvenile Stakes.
Although he has run well since, he has no other victories on his r?sum?. But that could change Friday when he tries two turns for the first time against six rivals in the 1 1/16-mile race.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - Trainer Robert Williams is earning a reputation as a giant killer at Fort Erie.
In the three-horse Harry J. Addison Jr. Stakes on July 11, Williams upset 1-20 favorite Forever Grand with Domascas Consort ($12.30)
Tuesday, Williams saddled Bermuda Triangle ($19.60) to snap the 10-race winning streak of quarter-mile specialist Pembroke Hall, who was sent off as the 3-5 favorite.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Jockey Real Simard found himself in the spotlight here Monday after his victory aboard Royalty Boy in the 56th running of $100,000 Manitoba Derby.
This was the second win in the Manitoba Derby for the Alberta-based Simard, who won the 1999 Derby aboard A Fleets Dancer. Simard finished second in last year's derby on favorite Taiaslew.
Royalty Boy and Simard stalked a three-horse pace battle among 2-5 favorite Shanghied, Skipper, and Albarino en route to victory.
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan - Allourwishes, a stakes winner here last year, headlines a field of five in Friday's $6,500 James Leakos Sophomore for Saskatchewan-bred 3-year-old fillies. The one-mile race is a prelude to the $10,000 Parkland Heritage at 1 1/16 miles here Aug. 21.
Allourwishes was the 2003 champion 2-year-old filly in the province based on her eight-length victory in the Woodland Heritage and her two other stakes placings, including a half-length loss to the boys in the Prairie Lily Sale Stake.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Claude R. "Shug" McGaughey III remembers the day his life changed.
"I got off on Exit 39 S off the L.I.E. [Long Island Expressway]. It's raining buckets on the morning of Oct. 5, 1985. I was going out to meet these guys that I had heard about my whole life, my whole racing life. We talked and they put me at ease pretty quick, but I wasn't but 37 years old or something."
With this weekend's $1 million Haskell at Monmouth Park and the $500,000 Jim Dandy at Saratoga thinning the 3-year-old stakes division, a field with lesser star power was drawn Wednesday for Saturday's Grade 3 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park. Illinois Derby winner Pollard's Vision and Derby Trial winner Sir Shackleton are the lone graded winners entered in the nine-horse field.
Chowder's First stopped West Virginia's bonus quest by winning Wednesday's $250,000 Cab Calloway Stakes at Saratoga.
Chowder's First, with Edgar Prado riding, finished a neck in front of West Virginia, the 1-2 favorite in the 1 1/8-mile Cab Calloway for progeny of New York stallions. West Virginia put himself in position to win a $100,000 bonus for his owners, Donald and Mary Zuckerman, when he won two other races in the New York Stallion Stakes series, the Times Square and Great White Way.
