Handicappers who enjoy playing races with full fields will get a smorgasbord of opportunities with the undercard of the $200,000 Maryland Million Classic Stakes at Laurel Park on Saturday.
Along with the Classic, Laurel will card 10 other stakes Saturday that drew a total of 105 horses. Seven of the races have purses of $100,000, and the conditions range from 2-year-olds going seven furlongs to two 1 1/8-mile turf races.
"Back to the Future" could well be an appropriate theme for Saturday night's 17th annual West Virginia Breeders Classics at Charles Town.
An eight-race all-stakes card of races for horses bred, sired, or raised in West Virginia is highlighted by the $250,000 Classic, a 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-olds and up.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Mark Hennig has two wishes for Consort Music heading into Saturday night's $50,000 Long Look Stakes at The Meadowlands.
"She could use a little pace and a little mud," the trainer said.
Consort Music might get both in the 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares. The presence of Pocus Hocus should insure an honest pace, and the weather forecast calls for weekend showers.
August 30, 2003, is a date Lynnett Hershbell will never forget. Within the span of several hours, Hershbell saddled her first stakes winner in a Thoroughbred race worth $200,000, and then got married.
"How can you top winning a $200,000 stakes on your wedding day?" Hershbell said, jokingly. "The only way I can top it is to win the Kentucky Derby."
That may sound like an impossible dream for a small-time trainer best known for working with Arabians, especially since Hershbell's leading Thoroughbred prospect is a 2-year-old gelding she describes as a "midget."
ANDERSON, Ind. - After a week's rest, Cattle Kate returns to face nine older Indiana-bred fillies and mares in the $35,000-added Merrillville Stakes on Saturday's 11-race program.
Cattle Kate finished second to Miss Dakota in last Friday night's Vincennes Stakes for 3-year-olds at the same distance and repeats a cycle that worked for her in September. Trainer Gary Patrick saddled her to victory in a statebred allowance on Sept. 6 and then wheeled her back eight days later to defeat open allowance company.
Southern Tour is one of three fast shippers headed to Retama Park on Saturday night for the $35,000 New Braunfels Stakes. A six-furlong race for fillies and mares, the field also includes invaders Miss Photogenic and True Rose, and locals Coastalota and Piniante.
Southern Tour ships in from Louisiana Downs, and returns to her best surface, the dirt, after making a rare start on turf her last time out. Ted Gondron has the mount on Southern Tour, a front-runner, for Bellamy Stable and trainer Cole Norman.
East Boston, Mass. - It won't be Seabiscuit vs. War Admiral, but there's match-race fever in New England again as the two winningest horses in North America - Call Me Mr. Vain and Diplomatical - face off in a one-on-one contest Oct. 22 at Suffolk Downs.
Each horse is a veteran claimer who has racked up 10 wins this year. The connections of both have agreed to a six-furlong race with a likely $10,000 purse that will be split 80-20.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - In last Sunday's allowance feature, Red Dragon, an 8-year-old gelding, scored his ninth win in 19 starts at Fort Erie, all of them since he left western Canada in 2000 as a winner of two races.
Looking for a runner that might go long, trainer Daryl Ezra claimed Red Dragon for his brother, Maury, for $5,000 in his Eastern debut. Red Dragon, a son of Parlay Me, has won eight races for the Ezras, most of them at low claiming levels.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Danny Vella was anticipating a lucrative yearling sales stakes day here Sept. 1, with Winning Chance an odds-on choice for the Algoma and Phantom Light looking like the horse to beat in the Elgin.
Instead, the day turned out to be a major disappointment for Vella and Stronach Stable. Winning Light finished a distant second and Phantom Light was a late scratch after coming up with an infection that has sidelined him for the season.