PORTLAND, Ore. - Portland Meadows will celebrate statebreds on Saturday when the track stages the 11th annual Oregon-bred Day.
All 11 races on the program, including five stakes, are restricted to Oregon-breds. Topping the bill is the $28,345 Oregon Futurity, which will match a field of nine 2-year-olds at a mile.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - A pair of stakes-winning fillies from Maryland, Gazillion and Wilzada, take on a solid local contingent in Saturday's $75,000-added Garland of Roses Handicap at Aqueduct.
Gazillion and Wilzada pack 119 pounds each as the highweights in the Garland of Roses, a six-furlong race that drew a field of nine fillies and mares. They will face several tough New York-based horses, including Shawklit Mint, Travelator, and Literary Light.
NEW ORLEANS - A hole was formed in the Louisiana-bred older horse division when Walk in the Snow went down with an injury in October. Walk in the Snow won last year's Champions Day Classic by more than two lengths and had raced competitively in open stakes races.
But two months after Walk in the Snow was sidelined, two horses have stepped up to fill the void, and the battle between Mr. Archibald and Spritely Walker in Saturday's $150,000 Classic may be the first round of an extended rivalry.
Several significant changes were made by the New York Racing Association to its 2004 stakes schedule, which was released Thursday.
The list covers stakes run at Belmont Park's spring and fall meets, Saratoga, and Aqueduct in the fall. Earlier, NYRA released its 2004 Aqueduct winter meet schedule.
The Grade 2, $500,000 Illinois Derby, which has become an important Triple Crown prep, will again be the centerpiece of the stakes schedule during the 2004 National Jockey Club-at-Hawthorne meeting.
The NJC meeting, which kicks off the Chicago Thoroughbred season, will run from Feb. 27 through May 11.
OLDSMAR, Fla. - Tampa Bay Downs has made a number of changes for its 94-day 2003-04 meeting, which begins Saturday. A new seven-furlong chute has been built, pick four wagering will be introduced, and patrons will have the opportunity to bet on poker as well as the horses.
MIAMI - There could be several vulnerable favorites in Saturday's all stakes Grand Slam pick four at Calder, but it is unlikely one of them will be Chatter Chatter, who should continue her winning ways in the $100,000 Three Ring Stakes.
The 1 1/16-mile Three Ring for 2-year-old fillies is the last of the four $100,000 stakes to be decided on Saturday's program. The pick four begins with the What a Pleasure and also includes the seven-furlong Chaposa Springs and Kenny Noe Jr. handicaps.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Gary Stute isn't sure where The Herc will be at the end of Saturday's $75,000-added Gold Rush Stakes at Golden Gate Fields, but Stute knows where he will be early.
With the speed to run a half mile in 44 seconds, The Herc will be the horse eight other 2-year-olds are chasing in the one-mile race, which attracted five stakes winners.