Los Alamitos has increased overnight purses for its three-week Los Angeles County Fair meeting, which begins on Friday, continuing a recent trend at Southern California tracks.
Earlier this fall, Del Mar increased overnight purses by 10 percent for its autumn meeting, which ended on Sunday. Santa Anita will increase overnight purses for its winter-spring meeting, which begins on Dec. 26, the track announced in November.
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After winning 27 races during the 2018-19 Gulfstream Park Championship meet and 38 races during the 2019-20 meet, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. believes he has a legitimate chance to make a run at the training title at the current meet. Todd Pletcher has won the meet title 16 of the last 17 seasons.
Keith Jones, the voice of Philadelphia Park and Parx Racing since 1987, will be retiring at year's end. He and his wife, Kelly, will be relocating to the Houston, Texas area.
“It’s going to be a new adventure,” Jones said. “I’ve never been out of the Northeast.”
Five times in his 15-race career, Cattail Cove has qualified for a six-figure futurity or derby only to be beaten in the final.
Cattail Cove’s best result in those races was a second in the $1.9 million Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity last December. The sixth attempt will come in the $154,550 Southern California Derby at Los Alamitos on Dec. 20.
Maxfield worked five furlongs Monday at Fair Grounds after being moved from Louisville to New Orleans around Nov. 20 and could make his first start since May as early as the Dec. 19 Tenacious Stakes.
Three-year-old Maxfield is unbeaten in three starts but is coming back from his second significant injury. After winning his debut and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland, he went to Santa Anita as one of the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile but was diagnosed the week of the race with a chipped ankle and didn’t start.
Bell’s the One, most recently third in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, will return for a 5-year-old campaign in 2021, trainer Neil Pessin said.
Bell’s the One currently is turned out at Chesapeake Farm near Lexington, Ky., and will join Pessin’s string at Fair Grounds around Jan. 1.
“She’ll probably have her first start of the year in the Madison if all goes well,” Pessin said.
Robertino Diodoro, the Midwest-based trainer, has received a stayed 60-day suspension from the stewards at Canterbury Park in Minnesota after a hearing to determine the source of two lidocaine positives in two of his horses that raced at the track within six days of each other, according to a ruling from the stewards.
Lone Star Park near Dallas plans to resurrect its Lone Star Million Day program of stakes for the 2021 season, the track announced Tuesday.
The meet will open April 22 and run for 48 dates through July 11.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - G.D. Hieronymus, the longtime director of broadcast services for Keeneland Racecourse in Lexington who ushered the track into the high-definition age, will retire in February, the track announced on Tuesday.
Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M., will resume racing Wednesday after a statewide lockdown due to the coronavirus had grounded racing for two weeks, the track announced.
Zia will additionally race Thursday this week in a makeup date for an earlier card lost to inclement weather. From there, the track will race on a Monday-through-Wednesday schedule through Dec. 23.
First post is 12 p.m. Mountain. Entries for the cards have been drawn.
