LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Like most handicappers and horsemen, trainer Dale Romans isn't quite sure whether the inner rails being set well out into the Churchill Downs turf course helps a speed horse or not.
"It sure seems to," said Romans. "Either that, or it's coincidence. They seem to carry their speed farther when those rails are up."
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Monmouth Park opens its 2004 season on Saturday afternoon with an extended schedule and a record purse structure of $320,000 per day as a result of a supplement from the state's casinos.
Monmouth had been slated to run its traditional schedule, from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. Under a recent agreement among all segments of the state racing industry, the Monmouth season will now run to Sept. 26.
The additional Monmouth dates had originally been allocated to The Meadowlands racetrack.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Trainer Mike Mitchell has committed Kela to Monday's Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap after learning the horse will not be subject to quarantine as the result of three cases of vesicular stomatitis found last week in Texas.
Kela is based in California, which requires horses shipping to Texas return home with a health certificate declaring the animal has no symptoms of vesicular stomatitis. Mitchell said that paperwork would be able to be completed before Kela's return flight to California on Tuesday.
CHICAGO - Arlington Park opens in mid-May, but the meet doesn't take off the training wheels until June. They have yet to run an open stakes here. Some days, entries have been slow. Others, the races have filled surprisingly well. Uneven weather has complicated matters. The days have been starting off cloudy and cool. Then someone throws a switch and the hot, humid air streams back in. Rain by evening, and grass races get moved to the main track.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Dixieland Heater was a Cinderella story in the making last fall.
He won 4 of 5 starts as a 2-year-old last year and was claimed three times while moving up the ladder, eventually into graded stakes.
Thursday, he drops back into the claiming ranks again as he seeks his first victory as a 3-year-old in a $25,000 claimer at six furlongs that serves as the Bay Meadows feature.
Dixieland Heater, a $10,000 yearling purchase in Washington, was claimed from his winning debut for $20,000 on Sept. 1. Trainer Art Sherman took him from Dennis Ward.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Trainer Cole Norman got a bit ambitious when he threw True Blonde Beauty to the wolves in the Grade 2 Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn in April. She finished 11th in that race, her second since switching from the barn of Patrick Daly to Norman, but came back to run second in an entry-level allowance at Lone Star and could be in the right spot Thursday at Louisiana Downs.
True Blonde Beauty is part of a full field of 12 in a one-other-than allowance at 1 1/16 miles on the turf.
ELMONT, N.Y. - On Monday morning, trainer John Kimmel had hoped to be talking about Friends Lake possibly running in the Belmont Stakes. Instead, Kimmel described a "depressed" and possibly sick horse who isn't going to run in the third leg of the Triple Crown.
Friends Lake, who won the Grade 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park in March, finished seventh in Saturday's Peter Pan, and was beaten 15 1/4 lengths by the winner, Purge. The Peter Pan was Friends Lake's first start since a 15th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Todd Pletcher has fond feelings for Jersey Girl, who provided him with his first New York stakes win and later his first Grade 1 victory.
Jersey Girl won seven consecutive starts in 1998, including the Acorn, Mother Goose, Test, Cicada, and Nassau County. As a 2-year-old, Jersey Girl won the Astoria Stakes, the first of what has turned out be countless New York stakes victories for Pletcher.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A four-horse spill in the last race Sunday at Churchill Downs sent three jockeys to Louisville hospitals for treatment. Late Sunday evening, two of the riders, Daniel Coa and Joe Deegan, had been treated and released. The other, Mike Morgan, rem-ained hospitalized Monday with a back injury.
Coa, Deegan, and Morgan were unseated in the spill, along with jockey Rafael Bejarano, who walked away uninjured. The incident occurred as the field approached the stretch in the 10th race, a one-mile maiden claiming race with 10 horses.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali scored numerous early knockouts. Champali, a horse whose name unofficially honors the great boxer and Louisville native, may similarly punish his opponents in an early round Wednesday at Churchill Downs.
is heavily favored to win the second race, a $66,800 allowance at 6 1/2 furlongs. A winner of seven races and over $452,000 for Lloyd Madison Farms IV and trainer Greg Foley, he is the undisputed class of the race.