ARCADIA, Calif. - Only two weeks after The Candi Queen won a first-condition allowance race, she takes a one-step jump in class in a $56,000 optional claimer at Santa Anita on Friday.
Trainer Steve Knapp said the opportunity at another lucrative prize was too good to pass.
"She's so sharp right now," Knapp said. "My exercise rider says he's having trouble holding her."
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Tiger Hunt, one of the top 3-year-olds at Oaklawn, on Wednesday had his first work since finishing fourth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. He breezed three furlongs in 39.60 seconds.
"It was a nice, easy three-eighths," said Ralph Nicks, who trains Tiger Hunt for Team Valor. "It was what we were looking for first work back.
"He looked nice and relaxed and finished up the last eighth in 12 and change."
Shannon Zuber, assistant trainer to Nicks, was aboard for the workout, which came shortly after the renovation break.
NEW ORLEANS - Go ahead and handicap the Fair Grounds Friday feature, but be prepared to call an audible.
Race 9, an open allowance, was carded at about 7 1/2 furlongs on turf, but heavy rain is forecast here Wednesday through Friday, and it's likely the race will be moved to dirt.
A surface switch would require a major strategic repositioning, depending on who scratches from the race, and whether the two also-eligibles draw into the field. This pair, and Neon Shadow, are the top dirt horses entered, and both would have an excellent chance on the main track.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Trainer Dick Occhiuto has always appreciated Mythical Road's professionalism and determination, qualities that helped him earn two wins and three stakes placings last year as a 2-year-old.
Those qualities were apparent again last Saturday, when Mythical Road broke through for his first stakes win in the $10,000 Flying Lark Stakes at six furlongs. He needed a little something extra to get up in time to win by a half-length over the pacesetting Keep on Turkin, however, and Occhiuto didn't hesitate to give credit where credit was due.
Tapit, one of the early darlings of the Triple Crown trail, will not make his planned start in the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 15 at Fair Grounds. Tapit missed a recent scheduled workout at the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida, and is suffering from a sore shin, according to David Fiske, racing manager for Tapit's owner, Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC.
Santa Catarina, one of the top 3-year-old fillies of 2003, has been retired and sent to Kentucky, where she will be bred to A.P. Indy, trainer Bob Baffert said.
Santa Catarina left Baffert's stable at Santa Anita in mid-January. Owned by Bob and Beverly Lewis, Santa Catarina won 3 of 10 starts and $645,260. Her lone stakes win came in the Grade 2 Hollywood Breeders' Cup Oaks last summer, the next-to-last start of her career. She finished fourth in the American Oaks last July in her final start.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The 2004 Canadian graded stakes list, which comprises 38 races, was released Wednesday by the Jockey Club of Canada's Canadian Graded Stakes Committee.
The Selene Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies at Woodbine, has been downgraded to Grade 2 status this year. The Selene had been a Grade 1 since the Canadian Graded Stakes Committee announced its first rankings in 1999.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Rene Araya, a regular on the New York circuit for the past 12 years, said the economics of the business have forced him to quit training.
Araya, 60, is down to four horses in his Belmont Park barn and expects to lose those horses by the end of the week. Earlier in the week, eight horses owned by Araya's main client for the past four years, Paul Pompa Jr., were given to other trainers or sent to the farm. Araya said Pat Reynolds received four horses and Gary Sciacca two, and that two horses were shipped to a farm in Ocala, Fla.