ARCADIA, Calif. - Never has there been a series of restricted stakes as lucrative as the $3.6 million Sunshine Millions at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita on Jan. 25.
California-bred and Florida-bred horses will compete in eight stakes ranging in value from $250,000 to $1 million. No one else is invited. The Kentucky-breds and the European imports that so often dominate racing are shut out.
In recent months, Kudos and Pleasantly Perfect have become forgotten members of the handicap division.
Kudos won the Oaklawn Handicap last April, but missed the rest of the year after undergoing surgery to have a bone chip removed from an ankle.
Pleasantly Perfect won the Goodwood Breeders' Cup Handicap in October. He appeared on his way to the Breeders' Cup Classic at Arlington Park, but he was not in compliance with the rules for bleeders in Illinois. Instead of going to the Breeders' Cup, Pleasantly Perfect earned a brief vacation.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Kona Gold, winner of the 2000 Breeders' Cup Sprint, will try to become the fifth horse to win a Santa Anita stakes at age 9 when he runs in the Grade 3 El Conejo Handicap at 5 1/2 furlongs on Jan. 1.
Kona Gold, 13 for 26 with earnings of $2,197,704, does not typically campaign early in the season, though he won the 1999 El Conejo while establishing the track record of 1:01.74 for 5 1/2 furlongs. Kona Gold has not raced since finishing fourth in the BC Sprint on Oct. 26.
"He's ready to run, there's been no setbacks," trainer Bruce Headley said.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The smile that seems permanently etched into her face and her place in the standings at the recently concluded Hollywood Park meeting are the tangible signs that jockey Julie Krone's comeback has been a success.
Yet below the surface, Krone has a competitive streak that will not be satisfied unless she's at the top, and the comeback may be her biggest challenge. It is only the rarest of athletes - like hockey's Mario Lemieux - who can return from an absence of more than three years and lead the league in scoring. Even Michael Jordan has been unable to do it.
Beginning with the opening of Santa Anita's winter meet Thursday, Fox Sports West will no longer telecast live races from sunny Southern California. Instead, Fox Sports viewers will get races from dead-of-winter tracks such as Aqueduct in New York, Laurel Park in Maryland, and Turfway in Kentucky.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Hollywood Park ended its 35-day autumn meeting on Sunday with across-the-board losses in attendance and handle.
Average attendance was 6,458, a drop of 10.5 percent from a 31-day meeting in 2001. Ontrack handle fell 13.7 percent to $1,444,595. The total average handle was $9,661,600, a drop of 2.5 percent. Total handle comprises betting from all sources, including statewide satellite locations, account deposit wagering, and interstate simulcasting.
SUNLAND PARK, N.M. - Jockey Nena Matz, who finished third in the Sunland Park standings last year and is currently tied for sixth with seven wins, will probably be out for the rest of the meet due to an injury suffered Saturday morning.
According to her husband, trainer Zachary Armstrong, "she was out for a regular gallop on a young filly of mine who suddenly just flipped over backwards on her."
Matz was taken to Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Texas, and diagnosed with two fractures of the pelvis.
ARCADIA, Calif. - With four wins in four starts, and a probable Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old colt coming his way, Vindication heads into the new year as the early favorite for the 2003 Kentucky Derby, a race his trainer, Bob Baffert, has won three times. Vindication, however, will not race again until well into the Santa Anita meet, Baffert having decided to give him a break after his runaway victory in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.
ARCADIA, Calif. - D's Bertrando won his maiden by 13 lengths on Nov. 9 at Golden Gate Fields, finishing six furlongs in a rapid 1:08.49. He may not need that brilliant of a performance to win Thursday's $125,000 California Breeders' Champion Stakes at Santa Anita.
Trained by Jeff Bonde for JMJ Racing, D's Bertrando makes his first start against winners in the seven-furlong Champion Stakes. Nine are entered.
