ARCADIA, Calif. - Rockin the Ship on Thursday won the first 2-year-old race of the year at Santa Anita, giving trainer Adam Kitchingman his first career winner.
Rockin the Ship ($9) ran two furlongs in 21.58 seconds. Ridden by Gary Boag for Galley Farm, Rockin the Ship finished 1 1/4 lengths in front of Gambling Rent, who broke poorly. Toss Both Ways finished third in the field of 10 California-bred 2-year-olds.
NEW ORLEANS - The best horses in Saturday's $100,000 Victoria Lass Handicap at Fair Grounds have no current form at all, but they have plenty of morning workouts, and Miss Lodi's will make you blink.
"She's always been a good work horse," said Miss Lodi's trainer, Tom Amoss.
No kidding. Miss Lodi has cracked a minute in two recent five-furlong works, and you will not see anyone breeze faster at Fair Grounds than Miss Lodi did Feb. 24, when she sped five furlongs in 58.60 seconds.
NEW ORLEANS - Trainer Ronny Werner has been caught in the media maelstrom that comes with having a Kentucky Derby hopeful, but as he fields question after question about Badge of Silver, he has another stakes-class 3-year-old flying under the radar.
Most Feared turned in a good five-furlong workout at Fair Grounds on Thursday. He has come back more quickly than expected from an injury he sustained in late January - so quickly that Werner hopes to start him either in the Arkansas Derby or the Blue Grass Stakes next month.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Saturday could be a day of celebration for trainer Pat Reynolds and Flatbird Stable, the connections of Peeping Tom and Shawklit Mint, two legitimate stakes contenders on the Aqueduct card.
Peeping Tom is among the starters in a strong lineup for the Toboggan and Shawklit Mint will be the favorite in the undercard stakes, the $75,000-added Broadway Handicap for New York-bred fillies and mares.
Like the Toboggan, the Broadway will be run at six furlongs, not seven, because of the delay in opening the main track.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Stately's Choice and Tiffa, the top two finishers in last month's Sweetheart Stakes at 1 1/16 miles, will hook up again, at a mile, when they top a field of seven fillies and mares in Saturday's allowance feature at Portland Meadows.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Mandy's Gold gets around. Last year, she raced at seven different tracks and won at five of them. Earlier this week, she made the 19-hour van ride from Florida in order to compete here for the first time in Saturday's $200,000 Oaklawn Breeders' Cup.
The 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares is the final local prep for the Grade 1 Apple Blossom April 5.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Mandy's Gold is the probable favorite for the Grade 3, $200,000 Oaklawn Breeders' Cup at Oaklawn Park on Saturday, but she is not the only starter in the field who put together four consecutive stakes wins last year.
Bien Nicole won her four consecutive stakes on turf. On Saturday she will make her first start on dirt since September 2001, when she won her maiden.
They never did run the Dust Commander Stakes at Turfway Park this winter. The $50,000 race was canceled because of weather on Feb. 15, and then the Feb. 23 makeup date was canceled, too.
The result has been a winter with few distance opportunities for an upper-class older horse. Saturday, that drought will end when six horses clash in the $50,000 Tejano Run Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile race that highlights a 12-race card at the Florence, Ky., track.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. - The third richest race of the Suffolk Downs season will be run Saturday when the Massachusetts breeding program inaugurates the $50,000 Ernie Lowe Stallion Stakes.
The six-furlong race is a new concept for the track, beyond the fact the purse is $20,000 higher than a normal mid-meet stakes race. It is restricted to Massachusetts-bred horses that were sired by a Massachusetts stallion and honors Lowe, one of New England's most colorful trainers, who died last summer.