In three starts since early August, Tour the Hive had been asked to stretch his sprinter's speed around two turns with modest results. Switched back to his favorite distance of six furlongs Tuesday night, Tour the Hive ($16.80) responded with a two-length victory in the $77,700 Mountaineer Park HBPA Stakes.
The race was restricted to horses who had made at least three starts at Mountaineer this season. The fillies and mares division, also at six furlongs, will be contested next Tuesday.
ANDERSON, Ind. - Perfect Drift, three-quarter-length winner of the Indiana Derby on Oct. 5, was expected to be among the pre-entries for the $4 million Breeders' Cup Classic. Should he start, he would become the second consecutive Indiana Derby winner to try his hand against older company in North America's richest race.
COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - Heading into the final weekend of the Fairmount Park meet, Ralph Martinez, 24, has the training title sewed up for the third year in a row with 121 wins. Leroy Hellman is safely in second with 64 wins from only 228 starts. Hellman has had an odd meet. He got off to a horrible 1-for-31 start and has been winning at a 32 percent clip since then.
NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Thistledown-based trainers swept Monday's five Best of Ohio day stakes here while shutting out their counterparts at Beulah Park and River Downs, Ohio's other two Thoroughbred tracks.
Miguel Feliciano won two of the five stakes, taking the $100,000 Endurance for the second year in a row with Majestic Dinner and the $75,000 Juvenile with Forest Picnic, who upset 1-10 favorite Hackendiffy - the shortest-priced favorite ever to lose a Best of Ohio race.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Sam-Son Farm and trainer Mark Frostad have been represented in the Breeders' Cup for the past six years, with Chief Bearhart carrying the baton from 1996 through 1998, and Quiet Resolve taking over for the next three editions.
But that streak will come to an end at Arlington next Saturday, as Dancethruthedawn has been retired after emerging from her final prep for the Distaff with an ankle injury and Strut the Stage is heading back to Woodbine for the Oct. 27 Sky Classic Handicap.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Xtra Heat, that amazing little package of a filly, has settled in wonderfully at Arlington Park, according to trainer John Salzman, and is approaching the Breeders' Cup Sprint in peak condition.
Xtra Heat shipped to Arlington a day after she won the Phoenix Breeders Cup on Oct. 6 at Keeneland. Taking a seven-hour van ride the morning after a tough race would knock out many horses, but Xtra Heat seems to bounce back from everything.
Zabenz was running out of career opportunities last spring.
Based in Australia with trainer Robert Smerdon, Zabenz sported the unattractive record of one win in 22 starts and earnings of $9,719. With a family history heavy on stamina, Zabenz was no factor over a mile and was just getting warmed up over 1 1/2 miles.
With few options remaining, Smerdon and owner Michael Watt tried Zabenz in steeplechase races. Six months later, the 5-year-old horse's career has undergone a revival. The one-time throwout may finish the season as a major stakes winner on two continents.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Mention the Breeders' Cup to Mike Smith, and the memories come rushing back. There was Lure, the incomparable miler, and winning rides on six other horses, including champions Cherokee Run, Inside Information, and Skip Away.
Three times in the 1990's, Smith was a star on Breeders' Cup Day, winning two races on the nation's richest card. The success propelled his career to a new level, earned him two Eclipse Awards as the nation's outstanding jockey, and seemed to put him on the fast-track to the Hall of Fame.
"Things happened for me," he said.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Yes, trainer Barclay Tagg will admit, he was tempted. But when Tuesday's noon deadline passed for pre-entries for the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships, Tagg resisted putting his exciting New York-bred Funny Cide in the $1 million Juvenile.
Thus, Tagg will stick to his original plan of running Funny Cide in Saturday's $100,000 Sleepy Hollow, one of seven stakes for statebreds on New York Showcase Day at Belmont Park. Funny Cide, who has won his first two starts by a combined 23 3/4 lengths, looms a heavy favorite against four or five rivals.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - With virtually the entire racing world looking forward to the Oct. 26 Breeders' Cup, stakes action throughout North America during the coming weekend will be relatively light.
That is only partly true at Keeneland, where two Grade 3 stakes should provide a welcome diversion. Those races are the $100,000 Valley View on Saturday and the $125,000 Thoroughbred Club of America on Sunday.