ARCADIA, Calif. - Valentine Dancer seems to thrive on racing. Last year, she made 14 starts, won five races, and earned $312,846 throughout Southern California.
At the end of the season, she was in top form, winning the Ramser and Cat's Cradle handicaps and finishing third in the California Cup Distance Handicap.
On Saturday, Valentine Dancer is one of the top California-breds entered in the $500,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf for Cal-breds and Florida-breds at Santa Anita.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - One of the original premises of the Sunshine Millions focused on a scoring competition between Florida-breds and California-breds. But after just a few races in the 2003 inaugural, it became painfully obvious that Florida-breds held an overwhelming advantage, in numbers as well as performance.
Florida won last year by the lopsided score of 56-16 (based on a 5-3-1 system for firsts, seconds, and thirds), with the only win by a California-bred coming in the Turf, where Adminniestrator prevailed by a nose over Florida-bred Music's Storm.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - He drew a bad post, is racing at the wrong distance, and hasn't started in 10 months. Man From Wicklow may still be the horse to beat in Saturday's $500,000 Sunshine Millions Turf at Gulfstream Park.
Man From Wicklow will break from post 12 in the 1 1/8-mile Turf. A long-distance specialist, Man From Wicklow will be turning back to nine furlongs for the first time since June 2001. He is making his first start since coming out of Keeneland's Elkhorn Stakes last April 23 with strained ligaments.
ARCADIA, Calif. - A late-season revival in 2003 gave Super High another year on the racetrack. Already, the decision has been profitable.
A California-bred, Super High won the $100,000 Work the Crowd Handicap at Golden Gate Fields on Jan. 3. Saturday, Super High tries for the richest victory of her career when she faces 10 California-breds and Florida-breds in the $300,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Don'tsellmeshort is the horse that speed figures forgot. He has won half his eight starts and has captured three stakes races, all while only once earning a Beyer Speed Figure higher than 77. On pure numbers, he is a strict bet-against in Saturday's $250,000 Sunshine Millions Dash at Santa Anita. But to go against him has proven to be a risky proposition. He just wins, baby.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Patrick Valenzuela, the top jockey in Southern California last year, hired former jockey Corey Black as his agent Thursday morning and then took off his mounts after twisting his ankle when he slipped on a mat as he left his house.
In a telephone interview, Valenzuela said he planned to return to riding at Santa Anita on Friday, when he was booked on three mounts. Saturday, he has eight mounts, including all four of the Sunshine Millions stakes here.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Larry Ross thought the competition in Sunday's Grade 1, $250,000 Santa Monica at Santa Anita was too tough, so he will run instead his star mare Ema Bovary in Saturday's $60,000-added Orinda Handicap at Golden Gate Fields.
Ross admitted it was initially a tough decision, but after Island Fashion scratched from last Sunday's El Encino to await the Santa Monica, "it made that race less attractive," he said. "I was also a little surprised at the weights. Sightseek got 122, Island Fashion 120, Got Koko 119, and Ema 117."
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Bill Mott was looking around late last fall for a potential Kentucky Derby prospect he might purchase for longtime horse owner Jeanne Vance. His search ended when he found Stolen Time, a promising 2-year-old whose resume included a victory over Second of June in Calder's What a Pleasure Stakes and a close third-place finish behind the undefeated Sir Oscar and Wynn Dot Comma in the seven-furlong Jack Price Juvenile Stakes.
Ellis Park's 2004 stakes schedule, released Thursday, closely mirrors last year's schedule, with minor adjustments to four stakes races.
The biggest changes effect two stakes over the meet's closing weekend. The Sept. 4 Dade Park Turf Classic and the Sept. 6 Tri-State Handicap, which had short fields in 2003, were shortened from 1 1/8 miles to 1 1/16 miles, and their purses were increased from $75,000 to $100,000.
Somewhere in the trainer's bible should be a section called, "Diary of a Quarter Crack," the drama that starts in a stakes horse's hoof and bubbles up to the public eye. First comes news of a foot bruise. The bruise becomes an abscess. The abscess pops through the hoof, causing a quarter crack. Then begins the therapeutic shoeing, the patching, the soaking - and most of all, the uncertainty.