INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Siphonizer spent a month on the sidelines this winter, recovering from a throat operation. The vacation prevented him from starting in the Triple Crown, but the time away and the success of the surgery could lead to a lucrative summer campaign.
Saturday, Siphonizer will be favored in the $150,000 Laz Barrera Memorial Stakes over seven furlongs, the first of three graded stakes on dirt for 3-year-olds at the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Action This Day, the champion 2-year-old male of 2003, has been turned out until mid-summer after being found to have a sore back, trainer Richard Mandella said.
The minor injury will prevent Action This Day from starting in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Lone Star Park in October. "I sure don't plan on making that," Mandella said.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - To pay a horse a compliment on the backstretch, say that he tries. The ones who give everything are the ones they love back there.
The top five contenders in Saturday's Hanshin Handicap don't know the meaning of quit. Among them, Wiggins, Coach Jimi Lee, Kodema, Crafty Shaw, and Apt to Be have won 48 of 113 starts. That's a .424 batting average. Ty Cobb would be proud.
Lauding these horses is the easy part. It gets harder picking a winner.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Frank Kirby already was having a nice little run. The end of the Hawthorne meet was good to him, and through last Sunday he was tied atop the Arlington trainer standings with four wins.
And just like that, he has a legitimate graded stakes horse in his barn.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - So much rain pounded the Louisville area the past week that the Churchill Downs turf course was expected to retain moisture long past the rainfall's end, however far in the future that might be. This ongoing development may have an effect on the Saturday feature, the Early Times Mint Julep . . . or it may not.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Ever since being badly injured in a spill more than a year ago, jockey Patti Cooksey had set one primary goal for herself: win at least one more race before hanging up her tack for good.
Cooksey realized that goal when she rode the 2,137th winner of her storybook career Thursday at Churchill Downs when Donner Pass drove to a one-length victory in the third race, a $15,000 maiden-claiming sprint.
MIAMI - Tour of the Cat is a 6-year-old multiple-graded-stakes winner who has already been halfway around the world this year to compete in the Dubai Golden Shaheen. Weigelia is a lightly raced 3-year-old who could not win his maiden at Calder under a $25,000 claiming tag at 2.
About all the two horses have in common is that they are both entered in Saturday's $75,000 Ponche Handicap and are both using the race as preps for Calder's rich Summit of Speed program on July 10.
Delta Sensation made her turf debut a winning one Thursday, splitting horses in deep stretch and running down the pacesetting favorite, Savage Beauty, to win the $61,000 Terpsichorist Stakes by a nose.
Savage Beauty held second by three-quarters of a length over Art Fan.
Delta Sensation had won 3 of her first 5 starts, all on dirt. She was a well-beaten fourth in the Grade 2 Nassau County Breeders' Cup. With no suitable dirt spots to run her in, trainer Frank Alexander decided to try her on the turf.
Jerry Hollendorfer tied a northern California training record of which he was co-holder with five victories at Bay Meadows on Wednesday.
It was the third time Hollendorfer has won five races in a day. He also did it at Golden Gate Fields on May 1, 1996, and at Bay Meadows on Jan. 23, 1997. Walter Greenman (Nov. 25, 1970 at Bay Meadows) and Ace Gibson (Feb. 24, 1971 at Golden Gate Fields) also had five winners in one day.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Saturday's $55,000-added Santa Clara Handicap comes down to a three-way battle among A B Noodle, Hippogator, and Hooked on Niners, who will be meeting for the fourth straight time and the fifth time this year in the one-mile race for fillies and mares. There are three others in the race.
Hooked on Niners was second, A B Noodle third, and Hippogator fifth in the Grade 3 Brown Bess at Golden Gate Fields on Jan. 31.