NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - The Thistledown meet, the third of four meets that make up the 187-day racing calendar here, ends Friday. Jockey Huber Villa-Gomez and trainer Rodney Faulkner have distanced themselves from the competition in their respective divisions.
Villa-Gomez has won with 56 of his 241 mounts (23 percent). His closest rival is Luis Gonzalez, with 35 wins.
COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - Trainer Leroy Hellman saddled five winners on last Friday night's card, then won with his only starter on Saturday night. Five of the six winners were favored and Hellman finished second and third with his other two starters on Friday night.
The big weekend moved Hellman into a second-place tie with Eddie Essenpreis in the trainer standings with 48 wins apiece going into Tuesday's races. Essenpreis then won one race on Tuesday, while Hellman went 0 for 2. Ralph Martinez, as usual, is in complete control of the trainer standings with 131 wins.
ANDERSON, Ind. - Marv Johnson added his name last Saturday night to the ever-growing list of trainers to saddle three winners on a card at Hoosier Park. He is the 10th trainer to accomplish the feat and the second this year. No trainer has ever won more than three races on a Hoosier card since the track opened in 1994.
MUSKEGON, Mich. - Ann Arbor Stakes winner Cassopolis heads a field of seven Michigan-bred 3-year-old fillies in Friday's $45,000 Michigan Oaks at Great Lakes Downs.
Cassopolis, claimed in May for $8,000, had been competitive all meet before her breakthrough stakes win in the Aug. 8 Ann Arbor, which she won by nearly 10 lengths. Randy Russell, second in the standings here, trains Cassopolis for Margaret Sullivan. Luis Martinez has the mount for the 1 1/16-mile Michigan Oaks.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Trainer Wally Dollase has been down this road before. In 1997, he brought Travers winner Deputy Commander to Louisiana Downs and won the Super Derby. Saturday, he will try and pull off the same double with Deputy Commander's best son, Ten Most Wanted.
Based at Hollywood Park, Ten Most Wanted is expected to go favored in the Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby over Soto, the undefeated winner of the Grade 3 West Virginia Derby.
POMONA, Calif. - Only one of the six winning tickets in the Fairplex Park pick six Monday was purchased in California, as bettors across the country poured $672,756 chasing a three-day carryover that had swollen to $297,793. The gross pool, including carryover, reached $970,549, and the winning tickets each returned $111,230.
MIAMI - Second of June has spent so much time at the starting gate since his last start that trainer Bill Cesare might have considered hanging a feed tub by the gate for the 2-year-old colt.
Cesare is hoping all that extra schooling will pay off for Second of June when he starts in Saturday's $100,000 Foolish Pleasure Stakes.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Danceinthestreets is the best thing bred in New Mexico to come to New York since jockey Mike Smith rode here.
Danceinthestreets, who has been in five barns in her 12-race career, puts a six-race win streak on the line Thursday against five rivals in a $51,000 third-level allowance race at Belmont Park.
CHICAGO - If nothing else, there sure are a lot of horses in Arlington's featured eighth race on Thursday.
Twelve, in fact, were entered in this first-level allowance at one mile.
Casual fans who crave high-class action may look elsewhere, but this race is a bonanza for players seeking a full, bettable field. The past performance lines seem to go on for pages. And they are rife with contenders.
