Martha's Music and Pass the Virtue split a pair of decisions when the two 4-year-old fillies were longshots in stakes. Their odds figure to be much shorter for the rematch in Saturday's $50,000 Nellie Morse at Laurel Park.
Last June at Delaware Park, Pass the Virtue shocked five rivals at 36-1 in the $175,000 Susan's Girl Breeders' Cup, earning a career-high 92 Beyer Speed Figure. Martha's Music finished 17 lengths behind, beating only one horse.
Miss Listo cuts back from two turns to one Saturday night for the $35,000 Bayou City at Sam Houston Race Park.
The Bayou City, a six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies, drew a field of eight, including Valid Pulpit, winner of the $54,000 Princess Handicap two back at Sunland Park, and the promising Page Me Later and Our Millennia.
Miss Listo made her first start around two turns last out in the $250,000 Delta Princess and finished fifth in the one-mile race, which My Trusty Cat won. Since that Dec. 20 start, Miss Listo has worked well at Sam Houston.
Prized Amberpro continues to reinvent herself. Once a claimer, she is now a multiple stakes winner. And once considered a sprinter, she comes into the $75,000 Camelia for statebreds at Delta Downs in Vinton, La., on Saturday night on the heels of a dominating win around two turns in the $100,000 Louisiana Champions Day Ladies at Fair Grounds.
SUNLAND PARK, N.M. - Saturday's $125,000-added La Senora Handicap at Sunland Park, for New Mexico-bred 3-year-old fillies, shapes up as a rematch of last September's Deffie Sawyer Futurity at Albuquerque. The six-furlong La Senora attracted the first three finishers in the Deffie Sawyer: winner Miss Trixie, runner-up Shemoveslikeaghost, and Jackie Jan.
PHOENIX - The one time Beyond Brilliant raced at Turf Paradise he won. Trainer Greg Gilchrist is hoping for a repeat when he ships his northern California-based sprinter back in for Saturday's $35,000 Swift Stakes. The 5 1/2-furlong stakes brings out many of the best sprinters in the region.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Oaklawn Park, which had been scheduled to begin its 55-day meet on Friday, has canceled its opening weekend because of a frozen racing surface. Oaklawn, which will be open for simulcasting, will now start its meet a week later, on Jan. 31.
The three-day cancellation is the first since 1997, when the first four days of the meet were lost to freezing temperatures. Last year, two days were lost to snow.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Although cold weather is threatening to force the cancellation of Friday's Oaklawn Park opener, the caliber of racing here this season figures to be red-hot because of a record purse structure that has lured almost 30 new stables and more than a dozen new riders to Hot Springs.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - James Lopez, last year's leading rider at Oaklawn Park, will begin the meet on Friday with a larger client base than he had last year. Lopez realizes that he will need the added business to successfully defend his title against a deep rider colony that includes many newcomers, among them former Oaklawn leading rider Jon Court and Ronald Ardoin, a winner of more than 5,000 races.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - It's not easy to change direction after 99 years, but that's what seems to be happening at Oaklawn Park.
The track, which had experienced declining attendance and handle in the second half of the 1990's, reversed course last year in both categories. This came at a time when other winter meets, such as Gulfstream Park and Fair Grounds, were down from the previous year.
On the strength of that season, Oaklawn, which first opened in 1905, will be able to offer record purses of $235,000 to $240,000 a day during its 55-day meet that opens Friday.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich of Maryland is set to propose that state racetracks be allowed to operate 16,000 slot machines, a number in line with racing industry wishes but strongly opposed by some other politicians and interest groups in the state.
Under the proposal, according to the Baltimore Sun, the machines would be permitted at Laurel Park, Pimlico Race Course, Rosecroft Raceway, and a yet-to-be-built track near Cumberland, in the western part of the state. Laurel, Pimlico, and Rosecroft would be allowed 4,500 machines each, while the new track would get 2,500 machines.
