STICKNEY, Ill. - Owner Frank Calabrese and trainer Wayne Catalano love a sure thing. All summer at Arlington, they send out horses to win claiming races at desperately short odds.
Saturday at Hawthorne, they played a much different game, taking a stab in the $100,000 Hawthorne Oaks with the 36-1 shot Beautiful Crazy, who got up by a head and lit up the board, paying $75.40 to win.
"I could've been a goat, but I guess I'm the hero," Catalano said.
Prized Amberpro passed the $500,000 mark in earnings when she rallied for a two-length win over Leg's O'Neal in Friday's $75,000 Magnolia, one of two stakes for Louisiana-breds at Delta Downs.
Prized Amberpro ($5.60), ridden by C.J. Woodley, settled in sixth early in the Magnolia, a seven-furlong race for fillies and mares held around two turns. She closed well through the stretch and finished in 1:26.46.
Lovely Afternoon made her first five career starts in the Windy City of Chicago, so she must have felt right at home with the blustery conditions at Penn National.
Ridden by Larry Sterling, Lovely Afternoon ($2.80) rallied to score a 1 3/4-length victory in the $53,450 Blue Mountain Futurity for Pennsylvania-bred 2-year-old fillies.
ANDERSON, Ind. - Down by the Sea proved worthy of her 6-5 favoritism by defeating nine Indiana-bred 2-year-old fillies by 1 1/4 lengths in the $74,250 Miss Indiana Stakes at Hoosier Park.
Down by the Sea, with Bill Troilo riding for trainer Joe Davis, recovered from a slow start to seize the lead in the opening quarter and then held tight to post her first stakes victory. The performance validated her gutsy nose win over Victory Punch three weeks ago, when Down by the Sea and Troilo battled head and head throughout in a nonwinners-of-two allowance.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Rick Pitino has received many awards in his basketball coaching career, but it's doubtful he ever gave a trophy to himself.
Pitino is scheduled to present the winner's trophy Sunday, following the $150,000 River City Handicap at Churchill Downs, and just might be one of the recipients. Pitino is the part-owner of Della Francesca, the Danzig colt who was good enough to win the Grade 2 Belmont Breeders' Cup and is one of many legitimate contenders in the Grade 3 River City.
On Friday, for the second consecutive day, the Churchill Downs Simulcast Network withheld all of its signals, including Churchill Downs, Hollywood Park, Calder Race Course, and Hoosier Park, from the 17 tracks that form the Southern Racing Cooperative.
Despite being in the midst of a multiyear agreement that runs through 2004, CDSN and the cooperative have been in simulcast rate negotiations since Tuesday, when the cooperative tracks opted not to import the opening-day program from Hollywood Park. On Thursday, CDSN withdrew all of its signals from tracks in the cooperative.
For the second straight day, racing at Aqueduct was canceled Friday because of high winds. The track remained open for simulcasting. Aqueduct had canceled Thursday's card for the same reason.
The Aqueduct jockey colony met about 30 minutes before the first race and decided conditions were not safe under which to ride.
"We made the decision as a group," said jockey Edgar Prado. "We prefer to lose one day than to lose a couple of months due to injury."
ARCADIA, Calif. - Father Time finally caught up with 10-year-old gelding Men's Exclusive, who has been retired after winning 11 races and $1,447,928 from 47 starts. A durable California-bred, Men's Exclusive ran for the time last time Nov. 8 at Santa Anita, where he bled and finished seventh in the California Cup Sprint.
Men's Exclusive was scheduled to leave Santa Anita on Saturday, and retire to a ranch in Corona, Calif.
His owner-breeder, Gene Reed, died Sept. 13. Men's Exclusive ran twice afterward.
ALBANY, Calif. - Fans at Golden Gate Fields could see jockey Russell Baze reach a milestone Sunday.
Going into Friday's card, Baze has 394 victories this year and is trying to reach 400 victories for the 11th time in the past 12 years. He had seven mounts each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
"It's a milestone every year," said Baze of the 400 wins mark. "It looks like I'll do it by the end of the week, not the end of the year."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies on Oct. 25, and first choice for the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet on Dec. 21, Victory U. S. A. only needed a plan to get there. Two months is a long time.
"I didn't want to sit on her so long before the Starlet, and I have to work her seven-eighths anyway," trainer Bob Baffert said. So rather than train, Victory U. S. A. will race - seven furlongs Sunday in the $100,000 Moccasin Stakes at Hollywood Park.
