NEW ORLEANS - In general, Mondays have been slow days at Fair Grounds this season, but though this Monday card lacks numbers there is plenty of quality.
The day starts with a 3-year-old filly maiden race around two turns, and has a solid core with a 3-year-old allowance sprint in race 7 followed by a full field of turf allowance horses in the eighth and upper-level filly and mare sprinters in the ninth.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - On the same day that trainer Mark Hennig was preparing to say goodbye to Mystic Lady, he was ready to welcome back Gold Mover, Raging Fever, and Summer Colony, all of whom figure to give Hennig a strong hand in stakes races for older fillies and mares throughout the year.
Mystic Lady finished fifth while making her final start in Saturday's Sabin Handicap. She will be sent immediately to the breeding shed, though Hennig said that owner Lee Lewis had yet to select a mate for Mystic Lady.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Man Among Men, making his stakes debut on dirt, upset the heavily favored Empire Maker in Friday's $81,000 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita.
Man Among Men had an ideal trip under Alex Solis. Third for the first six furlongs, Man Among Men rallied past fading pacesetters Truckle Feature and Ten Most Wanted in early stretch and finished a length in front of Empire Maker.
Man Among Men ($20.20) ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.39.
ARCADIA, Calif. - A budding rivalry resumes Sunday, when 3-year-old fillies Composure and Elloluv meet at Santa Anita in the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes. A field of six entered the $200,000 race, which most rational horseplayers will consider a two-horse showdown. This time, logic is due.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - What a difference a year makes.
Gygistar was still eligible for a first-level allowance race when he arrived in south Florida last winter. On Sunday, Gygistar launches his 2003 campaign in the $100,000 Deputy Minister Handicap as one of the nation's top sprinters while using the Grade 3 dash as a stepping-stone to the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen Sprint.
NEW ORLEANS - Each time he has raced in this country Mineshaft has stepped up to the plate, swung, and connected. If Mineshaft is going to be a truly good horse, he will have to do it again Sunday at Fair Grounds.
Mineshaft faces eight rivals in the $125,000 Whirlaway Handicap, his first start on dirt in a graded stakes. The Whirlaway earned
ALBANY, Calif. - Timing is an important factor in all sports, including in the development of young horses.
The timing of Sunday's $60,000-added Golden State Mile works out perfectly - well, almost perfectly - for trainer Neil Drysdale, who will send Ministers Wild Cat north to meet seven rivals.
"It's obviously not an ideal spot to have to ship a young horse to San Francisco for his third race," Drysdale said.
But other than that, everything is perfectly aligned for the half-brother to 2000 Breeders' Cup Mile winner War Chant.
Stately Jack Flash is the one to beat in Sunday's $10,000 Flying Lark Stakes at Portland Meadows in Portland, Ore.
Not only is he the only stakes winner in the field, but only one of his six rivals, Lacenter Flash, has even appeared in a stakes race.
Stately Jack Flash, who has a pair of seconds in stakes, had never finished worse than second before his sixth-place finish in a one-mile allowance race here on Jan. 25.
That finish sets up one of the subplots in the six-furlong Flying Lark.
OLDSMAR, Fla. - Florida-breds will be the focus on April 6 at Tampa Bay Downs. The track will stage six $75,000 stakes, with statebreds preferred in the entries. Funding of $40,000 per race from the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners Association and the local Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association will help make Florida-breds eligible for approximately $500,000 in purse money.
Purses at Delta Downs in Vinton, La., will increase 40 percent to an average of $230,000 a day beginning with the card Friday. The dramatic boost, made possible in part by an increase in handle and the revenue from slot machines, will put Delta's distribution close to, or on par with, some of the other top meets in the region.
Fair Grounds in New Orleans pays out about $270,000 a day in purses, while the Oaklawn Park meet in Hot Springs, Ark., has budgeted $240,000. Last year, Lone Star in Dallas paid out $228,000.
