DEL MAR, Calif. - Through the first five weeks of the Del Mar meet, Jeff Mullins has run half as many horses as Bob Baffert, but has won at such a high rate that he has been able to stay within hailing distance of Del Mar’s perennial training champ.
Mullins has won with 11 of 37 starters, a strike rate of 30 percent. He trails Baffert - who has been this track’s leading trainer for six straight seasons - by just four wins heading into the final 13 days of the season.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - At first glance, the Grade 3, $100,000 Sorority Stakes for 2-year-old fillies Saturday at Monmouth Park looks like an ambitious spot for Stand on Top.
She has made one start, a winning effort at Saratoga against New York-breds.
“She ran a very good race up there,” said trainer Terri Pompay. “She dug in all the way down the stretch. I don’t care if it was New York-bred or open. She ran a very good race.”
Pompay has a lot of faith in the filly and does not view the Sorority as an unattainable reach.
CHICAGO - Six furlongs is the standard operating distance of American horse racing. Double it, and you reach a land rarely traveled by Thoroughbreds in this age.
But this is the place Arlington is headed Thursday, when first-level allowance horses run a mile and a half on turf, the highlight of a nine-race program here.
Tom “Bomber” Doutrich has been named racing secretary for the Bay Meadows meeting which begins Friday.
Doutrich, who had been the agent for jockeys Ron Warren Jr. and Francisco Duran, will replace Greg Brent in what Bay Meadows President F. Jack Liebau termed a “reshuffling.”
The racing at Louisiana Downs this week will arguably be the strongest of the current meet. There are two overnight handicaps planned, as well as three stakes races and an allowance that could pass as one.
On Thursday, in the first race, stakes winners Remington Rock, Lights on Broadway, and Rebridled meet highweight King Zonic in a $32,000 overnight handicap named The Big Earl.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Classic Fool stunned most everyone but his trainer when he upset a couple of graded-stakes-placed horses in last Saturday's Governor's Handicap at the California State Fair.
Classic Fool, who paid $84.80, was 0 for 19 with only two seconds and two thirds coming into the race, but trainer T.J. Stewart, admittedly in the minority, believed the 4-year-old gelding had a chance to finish on the board in the race.
"I didn't really consider him a maiden," Stewart said. "He's a good horse. He should have won before, but he's been a bad-luck horse."
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - A host of invaders are expected for Saturday’s Niagara Handicap, a 1 1/2-mile turf race with Grade 2 status and a $300,000 purse.
The most recognizable runner is Cetewayo, a 9-year-old horse who is a multiple Grade 1 stakes winner of $1,113,917. His career began in 1996, but he has made just 31 starts.
Cetewayo and his stablemate Bowman Mill were the first of the shippers to arrive at Woodbine. Both are owned by Dr. John Chandler and trained by Michael Dickinson.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Thunder Blitz looks like the horse to beat in Wednesday's featured third-level allowance race at Saratoga. But with trainer Bobby Frankel having lost with his last 18 starters at the meet through Monday, handicappers may not want to take the short price.
Thunder Blitz has twice been a beaten favorite in this allowance condition, finishing third in a three-way photo behind Regal Sanction and Strive at Belmont on July 6 and second behind Puzzlement in the slop here on July 24. Puzzlement returned to win the Saratoga Breeders' Cup Handicap.
DEL MAR, Calif. - This was Babe Ruth calling his shot, pointing to the outfield fence and then hitting a home run. This was Joe Namath predicting an upset victory for the Jets over the Colts in Super Bowl III.
It was back in January when Ron McAnally told Sid and Jenny Craig that he thought Candy Ride, whom they were negotiating to purchase in Argentina, could win the Pacific Classic. Seven months later, and one day after Candy Ride's dazzling, track-record victory in the Pacific Classic, McAnally took great satisfaction in seeing his grand plan come to fruition.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Ten Most Wanted's victory in Saturday's Travers, the uncertain future of ailing dual-classic winner Funny Cide, and the difficult task the 3-year-olds face meeting a bumper crop of older horses this fall make for a muddled race for the Eclipse Award in the 3-year-old division.
