The slots-rich Delta Downs in Vinton, La., has saved the best for last. The track will close out its Thoroughbred meet Sunday night with the $150,000 Gulf Coast Handicap, and the 1 1/16-mile race, which is the track's richest open-company stakes for older horses, drew a competitive field of 10.
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DRF Past Performances
ARCADIA, Calif. - Edgar Prado, a jockey who deflects attention from himself and onto the horses he partners, will be forced into the spotlight at Santa Anita Sunday.
Prado, the accomplished East Coast rider, is traveling from his winter base in Florida to be honored by his fellow jockeys with the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, to be presented between races.
The award is given annually by jockeys, honoring one of their own for success and for character.
"It was exciting to be chosen by my peers," Prado said.
ALBANY, Calif. - For jockey Roberto Gonzalez, it was love at first sight.
"I've liked her since the first time I saw her on the track," he said. "I went to [trainer] Larry Ross and said she had a beautiful way of going. I told him, 'If you don't have a rider, call me.'
"The next time on the track, she galloped beside me. I didn't know anything about her. I just loved the way she went on the track."
The object of Gonzalez's affection is Chilean-bred Ema Bovary, who makes her second U.S. start in Sunday's $60,000-added Soviet Problem Handicap at Golden Gate Fields.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Gary Contessa said he has had his fill of chasing open-company horses with New York-bred Grey Comet and will point him to a series of restricted races.
Grey Comet, runner-up in last weekend's Gotham - beaten 4 1/4 lengths by Alysweep - will run next in the $150,000 Times Square, a division of the New York Stallion Stakes, on April 27 at Aqueduct.
After watching Second in Command splash his way to an 8 3/4-length victory in last month's Best Turn Stakes in New York, trainer Linda Rice suggested that the $200,000, one-mile Gotham might be a good spot for his next start.
Instead of stretching out, Second in Command will stick to sprinting when he runs in Sunday's $60,000 Horatius Stakes, a six-furlong race for 3-year-olds at Laurel Park.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Two allowance races for fillies and mares on Friday at Santa Anita produced upsets.
In the third race, Medinaceli ($101.60) prevailed in a one-mile turf race that ended with four fillies within a neck at the finish. Medinaceli was sixth on the final turn and rallied between rivals to reach the front. She outfinished Janeian, View from the Top and Alozaina, the 1-2 favorite, who was placed in graded stakes last year.
Medinaceli, ridden by Matt Garcia, ran a mile on turf in 1:35.28.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - It wouldn't seem likely that a young trainer embarking on his first full campaign here could look down his shed row and nod at a reigning Queen's Plate champion.
But that's exactly the situation of Ross Armata Jr., who has taken over from his uncle, Vito Armata, as the trainer of 2002 Queen's Plate winner T J's Lucky Moon.
From King Maple to Gandria, the Donald "D.G." McClelland era in Canadian horse racing and breeding was long and successful.
Another Woodbine season is beginning this weekend, but the local industry lost one of its most influential members when McClelland died in January at the age of 82.
In a half-century of raising his own Thoroughbreds, McClelland, with the help of his family, bred dozens of stakes winners at his Farm on a Hill in King City, Ontario.
FLORENCE, Ky. - Six weeks and counting - and doesn't everyone with a Kentucky Derby contender know it.
The connections of the nine horses that will clash Saturday in the $500,000 Lane's End Stakes at Turfway Park are keenly aware that the 129th Derby will be run May 3 at Churchill Downs. They also are aware that whichever horse is good enough to win here Saturday will most likely will have earned a ticket to Louisville.