GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Trainer Cole Norman led a regional sweep of Lone Star Million Day on Monday when he won three stakes - including the two richest races on the program.
All told, Norman's stakes starters earned purses of $385,000. But that was just Monday. He also won the $150,000 Stonerside here Saturday with Miss Bridget Jones for total weekend stakes earnings of $475,000.
"What a wild run," said Norman. "Did it happen? Was it real? It went too fast."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - When some of the best female turf sprinters in North America ventured into Kentucky this spring, Dixie Tactics and On the Fritz were waiting for them.
Trouble is, the ambush didn't work, as neither mare did much running in neither the April 19 Stravinsky at Keeneland nor the May 1 Mamzelle at Churchill Downs. So, with their egos perhaps slightly bruised and their sights definitely lowered, both have resurfaced in the Friday feature at Churchill, a $61,400 allowance at five furlongs on the turf.
MIAMI - Racing secretary Bob Umphrey had to postpone Saturday's scheduled $75,000 Ponche Handicap at Calder due to lack of interest. Only four of the nine nominees to the six-furlong sprint were in the box when entries closed on Tuesday, prompting Umphrey to scrap the race in the hopes of bringing it back again next weekend.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Queen's Plate nominees Awesome Action, Shoal Water, Into the Dawn, and I Testify are among the nine 3-year-olds entered in Friday's Woodbine feature, a 1 1/16-mile allowance worth $69,900.
Awesome Action, a son of 1997 Plate winner Awesome Again, has run several promising races for trainer Sue Leslie but has yet to cross the wire on top.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer John Ross has won two of the last four Plate Trials, with Catahoula Parish in 1999 and Shaws Creek last year, but both horses disappointed him in the Queen's Plate.
Ross trains one of the leading nominees for this year's Plate Trial, which will be run here Saturday, but instead finds himself on a different path to the June 22 Plate.
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan - The live season began without a hitch last weekend and Serge Rocheleau, last year's leading jockey, picked up right where he left off by winning three races on Friday night's card. He then won another race Saturday for a total of four wins from 12 mounts.
Sheldon Chickeness registered his own hat trick Saturday to sit just one win behind Rocheleau in the standings.
Trainer Don Bjarnarson, who started six horses, won three races in addition to a second and a third and is atop the trainer standings.
Timeless Love rediscovered her early speed and used it to score a wire-to-wire two-length victory in Tuesday night's $77,100 Ohio Valley Handicap for fillies and mares at Mountaineer Park.
A 4-year-old filly based in Kentucky with trainer Bill Bradley, Timeless Love ($10) never showed even a hint of speed in two turf sprint stakes earlier this spring and raced up close to the pace for only the first quarter-mile of her most recent start, an allowance sprint in the slop at Churchill Downs.
LINCOLN, Neb. - The past week was a big one for four jockeys who each posted four-baggers on different days.
Jerry Carkeek started out the bonanza on Thursday evening, when he won all the odd-numbered races on the eight-race card. It was Carkeek's second four-win card of the meet.
Armando Martinez joined in Friday night, collecting four wins on an eight-race card. Martinez accounted for a $161.20 late daily double that evening aboard Holes in My Shoes ($26.60) and Potomac Way ($6.80).
MUSKEGON, Mich. - Joe Judice took a big step toward the top of the jockey standings last week when he found the winner's circle 13 times in four racing days. Judice had a five-bagger Saturday and followed that with a four-win day Monday. On Tuesday, he won three more times.
Judice won 117 races to take top honors at the recently completed Tampa Bay Downs meet. He missed the first eight days of this meeting but now has 25 wins, two behind leader Mary Doser and one in front of Freddie Mata, both past Great Lakes riding champions. Mata won four races Tuesday evening.
SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Trainer Jamie Ness is enjoying the best year of his career since first taking out his license at Canterbury Park in 1999.
Ness, a 28-year-old native of South Dakota, came to Canterbury to work as a press-box intern after graduating from South Dakota State University in 1998. He still works at the track during the off-season, managing the simulcast center information booth.