HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Cloakof Vagueness, who placed second or third in her three stakes starts last year, runs in the featured ninth race Thursday at Oaklawn Park to begin what should be a productive year.
The one-mile allowance, which has a $33,000 purse, is for fillies and mares who have never won three races. Others in the nine-horse field include She's a Rebel Too, whom Cloakof Vagueness will have to catch; Tamarack Bay; and Golden Reputashn.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Trainer Richard Mandella named Gary Stevens to ride unbeaten Halfbridled when she makes her 2004 debut Saturday in the Santa Anita Oaks. Stevens replaces Julie Krone, who is recovering from injuries sustained Dec. 12 in a spill at Hollywood Park.
Krone rode Halfbridled all four starts last year, including the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. Stevens has won the Oaks four times, in successive years from 1987 to 1990.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Dennis Patterson knows Trevanian "won't be 6-5" in Saturday's El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields, but he said he's going into the Grade 3, $200,000 race at 1 1/16-miles "knowing we have a decent horse."
Trevanian may be the best horse the veteran trainer has ever had.
After running third in his debut, Trevanian won his second start at six furlongs. He returned to win a one-mile allowance race.
Trevanian didn't debut until Jan. 11.
"That was sorta by design," Patterson said.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Shadowland, who finished a troubled seventh in Sunday's $600,000 Louisiana Derby, is being pointed for the $1 million Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park on April 10, trainer Ralph Nicks said.
Shadowland is one of two 3-year-olds Nicks trains for Team Valor. The other is Tiger Hunt, who is targeting the Grade 2, $500,000 Illinois Derby at Hawthorne on April 3.
Shadowland was advancing nicely on the second turn in the Louisiana Derby, then got stopped along the rail in the stretch when he hit traffic. The trouble was costly, Nicks said.
Fastest qualifier Callies First Effort, a two-length trial winner, should be favored to become the year's first futurity winner in the Grade 2, $119,376 Mardi Gras Futurity for Louisiana-breds on Thursday afternoon at Fair Grounds.
On Friday afternoon, trainer Richard Louis Smith will send out two of the three fastest qualifiers in the Grade 3, $39,364 Mardi Gras Derby.
Namehimastreaker, a 10-year-old Quarter Horse, is well placed to get his first win since the New Mexico Horseman's Handicap on Nov. 2. He will face New Mexico-bred Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds in the $104,000 Mt. Cristo Rey Handicap over 1,000 yards at Sunland Park on Saturday afternoon.
Namehimastreaker, a winner of 28 of 96 lifetime starts with $822,012 in earnings, comes into the Mt. Cristo Rey off two troubled second-place finishes in 870-yard allowance races. On Jan. 31 he was blocked before finding racing room, and on Feb. 27 he was forced six wide on the turn.
NEW ORLEANS - Steady Course made her stakes debut Saturday in the Fair Grounds Oaks, but will not be competing in any kind of race for several months. Steady Course was found to be lame on Sunday morning, and X-rays of her left hind leg revealed a condylar fracture of the cannon bone.
Steady Course's trainer, Dallas Stewart, makes a practice of staying upbeat. But Stewart's voice could not hide his disappointment at the sudden injury.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Richard Dutrow Jr. dominated the inner-track meet by saddling 47 winners, including a recent stretch of eight straight days with at least one stakes or allowance win.
The spring meet may not be "all Dutrow all the time," but the 44-year-old trainer did win Aqueduct's spring meet title in 2001 and 2002. And judging from his entrants on Day 2 of this 38-day session, Dutrow-trained runners are still a major force to be reckoned with.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The field for Saturday's $1 million Florida Derby, which had been stuck at six after Master David's defection on Friday, could grow to as many as eight or nine by the time entries for the race are drawn at Gulfstream Park on Wednesday morning.