ELMONT, N.Y. - While the best 3-year-old colt takes a breather, North America's top 3-year-old filly is getting ready to return to action.
Ashado, the Kentucky Oaks winner, heads a field of six expected for the Grade 1, $300,000 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park on June 26. Ashado, trained by Todd Pletcher, was forced to miss the Grade 1 Acorn earlier this month when she developed a fever.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It is comeback time in Southern California.
Pleasantly Perfect posted an easy late-morning workout Friday under sunny skies at Santa Anita, looking healthy and happy as he starts to gear up for an Aug. 1 return at Del Mar. Working in company, Pleasantly Perfect was timed in 1:01.60 and walked off the track as if he was ready to take a nap.
Pie N Burger will be a short price on Sunday when he attempts to give trainer Cole Norman his third consecutive win in the $50,000 Ark-La-Tex Handicap at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La.
The 1 1/16-mile race has been brought back this year after a one-year absence, and will go as the first race on the card. Norman won the Ark-La-Tex in 2001 with Unrullah Bull and 2002 with Prince Iroquois.
A pair of $40,000 turf stakes - the Oliver and the A. J. Foyt - highlight the 12-race program Sunday at Indiana Downs, closing day of the 48-day Thoroughbred meeting.
Only two of the 11 entrants in the Oliver, a one-mile race for 3-year-old fillies, have ever won on the turf - Mocha Queen and America America.
Mocha Queen, trained by Mike Lauer, looks like the one to beat. She comes into the race off an easy 3 1/2-length victory over first-level allowance company in a one-mile turf race at Churchill Downs on June 5.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in the case of the Sydney Gendelman Handicap at River Downs, the absence of reigning Ohio horse of the year Devil Time is welcome relief for the rest of the Ohio-bred fraternity.
With Devil Time passing on a title defense in the $45,000 Gendelman, scheduled for 1 1/16 miles on turf, favoritism may go, surprisingly, to one of Ohio's best sprinters, Ben's Reflection.
Fillies don't beat colts in stakes races very often. If there is anybody who can help a filly get the job done at Finger Lakes, however, it's jockey John Grabowski.
Grabowski will try to win the six-furlong Ontario County Handicap for the fifth straight year aboard So Sweet a Cat, the lone filly in a field of nine New York-bred 3-year-old sprinters.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - This being the 21st century, and in consideration of the purse structures at major racing circuits around North America, finding a horse who has earned $500,000 isn't all that difficult. But finding one who finally reaches the half-million dollar mark in his 68th career start is a little more elusive.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Dad knows best the kind of racing he prefers, and if he's like most dads, he will be appreciative of what Churchill Downs has in store for him Sunday. That's when no fewer than five rich allowance races have been carded as a purposeful way to give thousands of horseplayers the kind of Father's Day gift no one else can give.
CHICAGO - Arlington Park plans to spend $3 million building two new dormitories on its backstretch, the track announced on Friday. The renovations will begin after the track's 2004 meet concludes in September, and when complete, the new dormitories will add 96 residential units to the backstretch.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - After 18 years as an assistant to Gary Contessa, Kim Laudati has ventured out on her own.
It can be a cold and competitive world for a trainer setting up shop for the first time. Laudati, with a little help from Pat and Frank Generazio, could be poised to get her first stakes victory with Cocktailsandreams in the $60,000 Politely Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles on the grass at Monmouth Park on Sunday.
A stakes win would be a great way to tell the world a new barn is open for business.