Prairie Meadows ended its 48-day mixed meeting with mixed financial results, showing a gain in ontrack handle but a decline in all-sources wagering.
Ontrack handle averaged $66,453 per day in 2003, up 7 percent from 2002's corresponding meeting. Total handle for the meeting came in at $25,645,641, down slightly from last year's figure of $26,119,334 when the mixed meet ran for only 45 days. The average daily total handle was $534,284, down nearly 8 percent from 2002.
Silver Wagon, the upset winner of the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga, worked four furlongs at Calder on Monday, after which trainer Ralph Ziadie said it was "95 percent certain" that Silver Wagon will make his next start in the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont Park on Oct. 4.
Silver Wagon, working for the first time since the Aug. 30 Hopeful, was clocked in 48.38 seconds by Daily Racing Form, then galloped out five-eighths in 1:01.74 over a fast track.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Tim Hills would rather not run Jeb's Wild and Joe's Son Joey against each other, but the conditions of Wednesday's $56,000 allowance feature at Belmont Park are too good to keep either horse in the barn.
The seven-furlong race is for 3-year-olds and up who have not won a graded stakes in 2002-03. Both Jeb's Wild and Joe's Son Joey are stakes winners, but neither has won a graded event.
"Plus, I'm trying to get them to stretch out because there are some good races coming up at a mile,'' Hills said.
CHICAGO - Cactus Ridge, the leading contender for the Arlington-Washington Futurity on Sept. 27, had his major work for the race last Saturday, breezing six furlongs in 1:15.40. And when it was over, trainer Bret Calhoun was simply glad to have the work behind him.
Trying to dodge the wettest weather of the weekend, Cactus Ridge worked over a sealed track that was harder than Calhoun preferred. With one final breeze scheduled for next weekend, and with rain forecast Saturday night and Sunday, Calhoun had little choice but to go on with the breeze on a wet, misty morning.
POMONA, Calif. - F J's Pace will have unwelcome company Wednesday at Fairplex Park, where he will try to win the $50,000 Aprisa Handicap for the second straight year. He will have to do it the hard way.
An 8-year-old gelding with 13 wins from 53 starts, F J's Pace faces a potential pace war with De Valmont in the six-furlong stakes. If the race unfolds as expected, and the speedballs go at each other's throats, the Aprisa could unfold perfectly for Thunder Bullet. Five sprinters entered the Aprisa, in which F J's Pace makes his fourth appearance.
CHICAGO - His trainer says it is not the cut of the turf, or the prairie air, or anything at all in particular about Arlington Park. But for whatever reason, the racing gods have smiled on General's Sword when he runs here. Other places, they have mocked him.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Stakes winners Puffer and Tusayan are among the 13 entrants in Wednesday's Woodbine feature, a second-level allowance for 3-year-olds and up on the grass.
Puffer, a Sam-Son Farm homebred, was narrowly beaten in each of his first three outings, including a Keeneland allowance race in April. He graduated in a 1 1/16-mile maiden special at Woodbine on June 19, before losing an allowance race by a neck to Sam-Son castoff Hard Edge.
EDMONTON, Alberta - With just one month to go before the end of another Thoroughbred season at Northlands Park, it's fair to suggest that the story of the meeting could be jockey Leanne Painter.
Heading into this week's action, Painter was second behind Quincy Welch in purse money, with $691,745; second in mounts (323); and third in wins (42).
POMONA, Calif. - Jockey Felipe Martinez will appeal a three-day suspension after a controversial disqualification Saturday in the $49,500 Phil D. Shepherd Stakes at Fairplex Park. Martinez rode Infinite Faith to a neck victory over Legendary Weave but was disqualified when stewards ruled his mount bumped runner-up Legendary Weave off stride in deep stretch.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Handicappers face a familiar dilemma in Wednesday's feature race at Bay Meadows. Should they base their selection on class or current form in the $20,000 claimer at six furlongs?
The answer could be both with Goodnews Bay, a 4-year-old gelding who ran in the California Derby last year. He could be the speed of the speed, breaking from just outside his primary pace rival, Super Streak, in the field of five.