LEXINGTON, Ky. - Keeneland's 10-day November breeding stock sale ended Wednesday with financial gains across the board.
Despite selling almost 200 fewer horses, this year's auction grossed 4 percent more than last year as 2,377 lots brought $187,230,000. The average price rose 10 percent, from last year's figure of $71,655 to $78,767, and the median price shot up by 40 percent, from $20,000 last year to $28,000 in 2002.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - After spending summer and fall in the east, trainer Patrick Biancone has returned to Santa Anita for the upcoming winter-spring meet, and he figures to be a major player in the key races. All but two of Biancone's 18 runners turn 3 on Jan. 1, and will compete in Santa Anita's glamour division: 3-year-olds.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Hollywood Park is rapidly making up for lost opportunity. The main draw of the autumn meet is turf racing, but unseasonably wet weather pushed most of the scheduled turf racing opening week onto the main track. Only three of the first 49 races were run on turf.
ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer John Buc has a special place in his heart for Red Power, who makes his second start Friday at Golden Gate Fields since having what Buc called "a little chip" removed from his knee in February.
Red Power will meet six rivals in a six-furlong $40,000 starter allowance race Friday. Among them is Michael's Wolf, who finished second ahead of Red Power in his comeback race.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Owner Gary Tanaka and trainer Harro Remmert hope for history to repeat itself Saturday when they send out Uriah, a 3-year-old German-bred filly, in the Grade 2, $150,000 Long Island Handicap at Aqueduct.
In 2000, Tanaka and Remmert captured the Long Island with Moonlady, another 3-year-old German-bred filly, who won at odds of 12-1 when the race was rained off the turf and run over a muddy main track.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Stakes-placed Mark One heads Friday's Woodbine feature, a $74,400 nonwinners-of-two-other-than allowance.
Mark One, a strapping gray gelding by Alphabet Soup, took a few races to get his act together. He won his maiden by six lengths in his sixth start on July 19, and then captured an Aug 17 preliminary allowance.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The Sunny's Halo, a 6 1/2-furlong race for 2-year-olds on Sunday, is the last of 10 new overnight stakes for Canadian-breds here this year.
The races in the overnight stakes program, which also included 12 open stakes - some new, some existing - were not guaranteed to go and required a minimum of five entrants to be carded. All offered purses of $100,000 added.
But many of the overnight stakes, including most of the Canadian-bred races, attracted short fields.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - For the third consecutive year, Fort Erie had significant gains at its 116-day meet, which ended Tuesday.
All-sources wagering reached $99,049,657, an average of $853,876 per day. Both figures were up 4.3 percent from last year's 116-day meet. Ontrack handle totaled $21,849,500, for an average of $188,357. Ontrack handle was up 1.5 percent from 2001.
Total purses distributed during the 116-day meet amounted to $21,873,400, a hike of 17 percent over the previous season.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Kris Prather, the apprentice rider who early in 2001 led North American jockeys in victories, posted her first win since June when she won aboard Plino in the fourth race Wednesday at Churchill Downs.
Prather has been riding since August 2000 but still will be allowed to ride with a five-pound allowance for about six more weeks because of time she has missed with injuries. Her latest layoff was because of a pelvic injury suffered at Churchill on June 29, when she was kicked by a horse she had just ridden.
PORTLAND, Ore. - It seldom happens in racing that things unfold exactly the way one hopes.
But Sunday's six-furlong Diane Kem Handicap went just as it was scripted for owner-trainer Dick Occhiuto. Earlier in the week Occhiuto described the best- case scenario for his classy mare, Icicle Angel: "She wants to come into the lane with a couple of horses in front of her on the inside," he said. "That's the ideal situation for her."