The first Saturday in August will be the biggest racing day of the season at Mountaineer Racetrack.
A program featuring seven stakes, highlighted by the 35th running of the Grade 3, $600,000 West Virginia Derby, is scheduled for Aug. 7. The stakes package on that card will be worth $1.12 million - or more than 40 percent of the $2.64 million stakes schedule for the entire 2004 season.
SUNLAND PARK, N. M. - A record handle figure that had stood for a month was broken Tuesday afternoon at Sunland Park, as the track topped the $2 million mark for the first time in its 45-year history. Over the last three years, the track has found a new winter simulcast market, and handle has risen steadily.
Bets totaled $2,151,368 on Tuesday, crushing the old record of $1,698,255 on Jan. 6. Sunland Park director of racetrack operations Dustin Dix says he believes the best is yet to come.
Quincy Hamilton, the leading apprentice at Sam Houston, made his last weekend at the track count when he won two races Thursday and had double-digit winners Friday and Saturday. He was scheduled to leave for Laurel in Maryland on Sunday.
"I want to get established up there," said Hamilton."I want to win the Eclipse Award, just like everybody else."
Maryland has been a base for a number of Eclipse Award-winning apprentices, including Kent Desormeaux and Chris McCarron.
Jockey Shane Sellers will ride two of the best Louisiana-breds in training Saturday night, when he teams with Spritely Walker in the $200,000 Championship and Zarb's Luck in the $100,000 Sprint on the Louisiana Premier Night program at Delta Downs.
There are 10 races worth at least $50,000 each on the all Louisiana-bred card. Purses for the program total $1 million.
Delta will offer a special pick four starting with race 5. There is a guaranteed pool of $25,000, and payout on the bet is mandatory, said officials with Delta.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Good, but not quite good enough. That has been the year-end rap on Medaglia d'Oro the past two years. He has been one of the leaders of his generation for two seasons now, through the Triple Crown grind and his subsequent glory at Saratoga as a 3-year-old in 2002, to the acclaim he received as one of the nation's best older horses in 2003.
ARCADIA, Calif. - An impressive allowance win Saturday by Last Minute Detail has propelled the 3-year-old into the Santa Anita Derby picture. Trainer Don Chatlos said the allowance "was one race too late, but we got there."
Last Minute Detail did more than just get there. One start after an ordinary fourth-place finish in the six-furlong San Miguel Stakes, Last Minute Detail stretched to seven furlongs Saturday and powered to a two-length win in 1:22.11. He earned an outstanding 93 Beyer Speed Figure and will target the San Felipe Stakes on March 13.
ARCADIA, Calif. - With a few more races like Thursday's seventh at Santa Anita, the whole process-of-elimination handicapping technique may need to be scrapped. Horseplayers who begin the handicapping process by identifying horses not qualified to win will have a difficult time crossing out any in the feature race.
NEW ORLEANS - Olmodavor will leave New Orleans on Wednesday and return to trainer Dick Mandella's Southern California base, but he might return. Mandella said Monday that he would seriously consider shipping Olmodavor back to Fair Grounds for the $500,000 New Orleans Handicap on Feb. 29.
If Olmodavor comes, he could once again meet Spanish Empire, whom he beat by a half-length here Sunday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Whirlaway Handicap. Spanish Empire, still improving as a lightly raced 4-year-old, appeared to come out of the Whirlaway in good shape.
