Aquaphobia, the one-length winner of last Saturday’s Grade 1 United Nations Stakes at Monmouth Park, will be pointed to the Grade 1, $500,000 Sword Dancer on Aug. 29 at Saratoga, trainer Mike Maker said.
Aquaphobia, claimed for $62,500 in January, earned a career-best 102 Beyer Speed Figure for the United Nations victory, which came in his first start going 1 3/8 miles. The Sword Dancer is run at 1 1/2 miles.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Peter Brant has owned such magnificent horses as Kentucky Derby winner Swale and champions Gulch and Waya. So, when he says that Sistercharlie is “the best horse I’ve ever owned” it carries significant weight.
“She’s an outstanding, outstanding horse, and I don’t say that lightly,” Brant said of the 2018 female turf champion. “I’ve been very fortunate to have some really top horses but never had a horse that was as consistent and as hard-trying as her, and she had a bit of bad luck. She had pneumonia a couple of times. She’s a very special mare.”
Bolo, the winner of the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita in 2019 and three other stakes, has been retired after a series of disappointing performances in recent months.
Trainer Carla Gaines made the announcement on Twitter on Tuesday.
“It is with pride, joy and a heavy heart that we have decided it’s time to retire (Grade 1 winner) Bolo from racing,” Gaines wrote. “He is happy, healthy and sound. He just doesn’t seem interested in racing anymore.”
By his count, Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith has undergone 11 coronavirus tests since the pandemic began earlier this year.
“I’ve had every one I can think of – throat, the nose, the antibody one,” he said. “I’ve taken them all.”
An extensive travel itinerary in recent months, in which Smith has ridden at Belmont Park, Churchill Downs, Keeneland, Monmouth Park, and Santa Anita, has led to the many tests, all negative.
Last Saturday at Monmouth Park in New Jersey, Smith won the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes with Authentic. Smith had two coronavirus tests last weekend.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Mark Casse is well aware people are saying Got Stormy is not the horse she was last year after opening her 2020 campaign with four consecutive losses, including a fourth-place finish earlier this month in the Grade 3 Poker at Belmont Park.
But Casse is not about to give up yet on the two-time Grade 1 winner and runner-up in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Mile, who is being pointed toward a defense of her title in the Fourstardave here Aug. 22.
Del Mar will have opening day, Take 2, on Friday.
After racing for three days, from July 10-12, to start the summer meeting, Del Mar halted racing for July 17-19 after 15 jockeys tested positive for the coronavirus on July 14. Track officials said they were asymptomatic.
When racing resumes Friday at 2 p.m. Pacific, those riders will be back in action even though they will not have been required to undergo another coronavirus test, according to track president Josh Rubinstein.
Larry Jones is best known to the racing public as the trainer of a Horse of the Year and three Kentucky Oaks winners.
But to insiders who have marveled at some of his practices through the years, Jones also is known as the 185-pound trainer who exercises his own horses. And that, finally, has come to an end.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario announced two more positives for the Class 2 drug capsaicin, bringing the total number this year in Ontario to 11, nine on the Thoroughbred side and two Standardbreds.
Capsaicin is the active ingredient in chili peppers that makes them hot. Trainers have used it to stop horses from chewing on things such as bandages and cross ties.
