CHICAGO - Two races, two knockouts for the 3-year-old colt Fifteen Rounds.
Fifteen Rounds won his debut at Hawthorne on April 1 by more than 10 lengths and proved it was no fluke a month ago at Arlington, easily dispatching four 3-year-old allowance rivals. Fifteen Rounds climbs the allowance ladder and faces older horses for first time Thursday, but figures to hit just as hard in Arlington's six-furlong feature.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Trainer Armando Lage will use Thursday's Bay Meadows feature as an experiment for Broke in Blairsden. A 5-year-old Cal-bred mare, Broke in Blairsden will make her turf debut when she meets seven other fillies and mares in a $50,000 optional claiming race at five furlongs.
Five veteran jockeys at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., have been fined at least $250 apiece after being cited by the stewards for not persevering with their mounts in recent races.
All of the fines involved horses who were in contention for fourth or fifth place. Calvin Borel was fined $250 for a first offense, which occurred in the sixth race on June 1, then was fined another $500 for a second incident in the seventh race on June 6.
Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore concluded its 2003 spring meet on Sunday with a decrease of less than 1 percent in total handle from the same period in 2002. All-sources handle totaled $265.5 million for this year's 48-day meet compared with $266.9 million during the 49-day 2002 meet.
Persistent inclement weather on the East Coast wreaked havoc with the meet, which began April 2. Only 20 of the 82 races (24 percent) scheduled for the turf were actually run on the grass. In the last 17 days of the meet, Pimlico used its turf course only on Preakness Day, May 17.
Los Alamitos has raised purses for its Quarter Horses races by 15 percent, an average of $1,000 per race. The increase goes into effect for Thursday's races at the Orange County, Calif., track.
Funding for the purse increase came partially from a court settlement regarding the distribution of simulcast fees for night racetracks in California, according to Ed Allred, the track's owner and chief executive officer. Los Alamitos shares the nighttime racing market in California with a harness meeting at Cal-Expo in Sacramento.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Beau's Town, who had been pointing for the $125,000 Iowa Sprint Handicap at Prairie Meadows on June 21, will instead make his next start the same day at Churchill Downs in the Grade 3, $100,000-added Aristides Handicap.
Logistics accounted for the change in game plan, said Dave Hulkewicz, who co-owns Beau's Town with Bobby Beck.
"We wanted to run him in Iowa, but we can't get a plane," said Hulkewicz. "He would have to van 15 hours up and back, and that's asking too much."
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - It hasn't taken long for trainer Danny Vella to get back in a winning groove here.
Vella, who spent the last five years as the farm trainer at Stronach Stable's Adena Springs South in Florida, returned to ontrack duty at Woodbine this spring.
After sending out a trio of winners last weekend, Vella's record stood at 12 for 34, for a lofty winning percentage of 35, with 50 percent of his runners having finished first or second.
AUBURN, Wash. - Emerald Downs's program for 2-year-olds hit full stride last weekend with a pair of maiden special weight races, and both winners seem likely to be heard from when the division's stakes schedule is launched about a month from now.
Last Saturday, Sala de Oro, a second-time starter trained by Grant Forster, blitzed six other 2-year-old fillies by six lengths in 1:05.20 for 5 1/2 furlongs. Sala de Oro had run third to the Bud Klokstad-trained Aunt Tizzy in her prior outing, a maiden special weight race at 4 1/2 furlongs May 10.
ELMONT, N.Y. - After becoming only the 10th filly to win the Kentucky Oaks and Acorn, Bird Town will attempt to pull off another Grade 1 double this summer at Saratoga.
Trainer Nick Zito said Bird Town will most likely make her next start in the Grade 1 Test Stakes on July 28 at Saratoga. Bird Town will use that race as a stepping-stone to the Grade 1 Alabama on Aug. 16, which Zito has previously stated is his and owner Marylou Whitney's major objective of the summer.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Each made a name for himself during the Triple Crown last year, then faded from view. Just more than a year later, Proud Citizen and Perfect Drift can reenter the racing consciousness Saturday in the $750,000 Stephen Foster Handicap, a Grade 1 race that in recent years has become the highlight of the post-Kentucky Derby segment of the Churchill Downs spring meet.