PORTLAND, Ore. - Champagne Til Dawn heads a disparate cast of six in the featured 10th race on Monday's Veterans Day program at Portland Meadows, a one-mile allowance for horses who have never won two races other than maiden or claiming.
The field includes two fillies, and its runners range in age from 3 to 8, but fans will have little difficulty finding the likely favorite, Champagne Til Dawn.
STICKNEY, Ill. - With at least one horse for each of the six Illinois-bred, $100,000 stakes races Saturday at Hawthorne, trainer Gene Cilio was positioned for a momentous day. But after being disqualified from a win in the first stakes and losing in the next three, Cilio's hopes had grown as wan as the late-afternoon Chicago light.
MIAMI - The friendly rivalry between trainers Christophe Clement and his Payson Park neighbor Bill Mott continued Saturday when Clement pulled off a mild upset with Madeira Mist, who defeated Mott's 1-2 favorite, Maliziosa, in the $38,465 Good Intentions Stakes at Calder Race Course.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Class prevailed at Aqueduct on Saturday as 8-5 favorite Babae took command around the far turn and held off the late charge of Strawberry Blonde to win the Grade 3 by three-quarters of a length.
It was 1 1/2 lengths back to Silver Rail in third.
It was the second year in a row that Babae won the Athenia, and the fourth consecutive year that jockey Jorge Chavez won the race, which was worth $116,700.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Evening Attire, the Jockey Club Gold Cup winner and fourth-place finisher in the Breeders' Cup Classic, may make his next start in the $400,000 Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs on Nov. 29, trainer Pat Kelly said.
Evening Attire worked four furlongs in 48.02 seconds Saturday morning over Belmont Park's training track. It was his first breeze since the Classic.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Trainer Laura de Seroux recently added two members to her already powerful team of fillies and mares.
In the last few weeks, Turtle Bow, who finished ninth in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf, and A Ma Guise, a 2-year-old filly from France, have joined de Seroux's stable at San Luis Rey Downs.
Turtle Bow is expected to debut during the upcoming Santa Anita winter-spring meeting. A 3-year-old, she has won 5 of 10 starts, including three stakes. Her most prestigious victory came in the Group 2 Prix d'Astarte at Deauville, France, in August.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Favored Parose closed well off off hot fractions under Todd Kabel to win Saturday's Grade 3, $167,700 Woodbine Slots Cup Handicap.
Parose sat 12 lengths off the early lead in the 1 1/16-mile race, as B.D. Victor and Captain Wallstreet dueled through splits of 23.12 and 46.71 seconds. B.D. Victor opened a lead on the far turn through three-quarters in 1:11.65, while Parose was in the midst of a four-wide rally.
ALBANY, Calif. - Apprentice jockey Francisco Duran had one of the best days of his career Friday, winning four races at Golden Gate Fields.
He won three in a row, beginning with the second race aboard Double Dollar Day ($14). He won the third with Alyround the Flag ($5.60) and the fourth with Chapilkim ($32.80). He also won the day's finale in the eighth with Highly Amusing ($9.60).
Duran has won seven races through the first three days of the meeting, two more than perennial leader Russell Baze.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Fifty-one weeks after her last win and 233 days since she last ran, Forest Heiress tries to jump-start her career for new connections on the Veterans Day card Monday at Aqueduct.
After winning four of her first six races for trainer Ben Perkins Jr. and Ebby Novak's New Farm, Forest Heiress was purchased privately by Robert McNair's Stonerside Stable and turned over to Bill Mott.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The rain fell from Thursday through Saturday. The tote board did not work on Friday and Saturday. The turf course was dormant and the main track had too many short fields.
Things can only get better when Hollywood Park offers its sole Monday program of the meeting, in conjunction with Veterans Day.