INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Affluent runs Sunday under optimum conditions - seven furlongs on dirt, Azeri nowhere to be found - in the Grade 2, $250,000 A Gleam Handicap, race 4 on the Hollywood Gold Cup card. It is the logical spot, according to Affluent's trainer Ron McAnally.
"We waited specifically for this race because she has run so well at seven furlongs, and we don't have to hook a monster this time - Azeri," McAnally said.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Rusty Arnold said handicappers might not be so willing to forgive Fircroft her fourth-place finish as the favorite in the Sands Point, but he will.
Arnold is throwing out Fircroft's non-effort and is looking toward Saturday's $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks, a 1 1/2-mile race for 3-year-old fillies at Belmont Park on the closing weekend of the spring-summer meet.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The connections behind Mineshaft, the winner of last Saturday's Suburban, return to Belmont Park on Sunday with Hidden Truth, who looks like the horse to beat in the $150,000 Lexington.
Seven 3-year-old turf males entered the Grade 3 Lexington, a 1 1/4-mile race.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - The class drop Pie N Burger takes Sunday for the $60,000 Bob Johnson Memorial makes him a standout. The one-mile race for 3-year-olds and up is one of two stakes races that close out the meet at Lone Star Park.
Pie N Burger took down one of the track's biggest prizes in his last start, when he drove to a front-running win in the Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap May 26. In that race he defeated Grade 2 winner Bluesthestandard.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - With four of the five 2-year-olds entered in the $75,000 Middleground Breeders' Cup having won their last starts by daylight, coming up with the winner will take some hairsplitting.
The six-furlong Middleground is one of two closing-day stakes Sunday. The other is the $60,000 Bob Johnson Memorial, which drew Grade 3 Lone Star Park Handicap winner Pie N Burger.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - The scene plays out every weekend outside New York and Southern California: a racetrack stages a major stakes and leading national jockeys pour in to ride the top contenders.
Most of the local jockeys, the backbone of the day-in, day-out product, wind up watching the race on television. A lucky few get mounts on the longest shots.
HENDERSON, Ky. - It is quite common for an apprentice rider to get doused by other jockeys with all types of liquids and foreign substances after the first victory of his career.
But it is extraordinary for an apprentice to get that first career win in what essentially is a match race.
A drop from open company and an equipment change may be all Jaki's Magic needs to win for the first time in a year.
After chasing high-priced optional claimers at a variety of East Coast tracks, Jaki's Magic meets Virginia-bred and Virginia-sired older horses going 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf course in Sunday's $50,000 Daniel Van Clief Stakes at Colonial Downs.