MIAMI - Saturday's Festival of the Sun program established an all-time record for mutuel handle during a Calder meet when $9,061,264 was wagered on the 13-race program. The previous mark of $8.8 million was established on the 2001 Festival of the Sun card.
The handle was the second highest in track history, surpassed only by the $9.4 million wagered on Dec. 29, 2001, on the Grand Slam II card, which included four stakes, during the Tropical-at-Calder meeting.
NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Majestic Dinner became the first horse to win the Best of Ohio Endurance twice when he took the race for the second year in a row on Monday at Thistledown. The $100,000 Endurance was the centerpiece of Best of Ohio day, which featured five stakes for Ohio-breds.
Majestic Dinner made the lead after a half-mile in the 1 1/4-mile Endurance and drew off to a 1 1/4-length win over Bad Little Fellow, with Your Abc's third.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Bobby Frankel, the Hall of Fame trainer, and Kristin Mulhall, who at 20 is the youngest trainer in Southern California, both reached milestones on Monday at Santa Anita.
Both saddled winners of divisions of the Ramser Handicap for 3-year-old fillies. For Frankel, the win by Kithira in the first division gave him his first win in the Ramser and his 35th career stakes win at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting. Frankel, 61, is third on the all-time Oak Tree list behind Charles Whittingham (68) and Ron McAnally (36).
ARCADIA, Calif. - Paxtecum ran a winning race when he finished a close third at 29-1 in the El Cajon Stakes at Del Mar on Sept. 6. Three weeks later, he was a disappointing fourth as the favorite in the Pomona Derby at Fairplex Park.
"Looking back I would have liked to have skipped the Pomona race," said trainer Mike Machowsky.
MIAMI - Trainer Kathleen O'Connell confirmed Tuesday that owner-breeder Gil Campbell has put up $10,000 to pre-enter Ivanavinalot for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. A decision on whether to ship and run the filly may not be made until as late as next Wednesday, when entries are taken for all eight Breeders' Cup races.
On Saturday, Ivanavinalot posted her fifth and most impressive win in six career starts: a record-setting 13 3/4-length victory in Calder's $400,000 My Dear Girl Stakes. Her winning margin was the largest in the 20-year history of the Florida Stallion Stakes.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Bolstered by the inaugural edition of the Sunshine Millions and anchored by the $1 million Florida Derby, Gulfstream Park will offer a record $8.6 million in stakes purses during the 2003 meeting, which runs from Jan. 3 through April 25. The stakes program is the richest in Florida history.
The Sunshine Millions program will pit Florida-breds against California-breds at Magna Entertainment Corp.'s two flagship tracks, Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita, on Jan. 25. A total of $1.85 million in purses will be awarded at Gulfstream that day.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Trainer Gennadi Dorochenko would like to change one thing about racing in California.
He would like to see the state allow individuals to hold both a jockey's license and a trainer's license.
If that were the case, not only would he be listed as the trainer of Satin Dolly in Thursday's Bay Meadows' co-feature, a one-mile turf race for 3-year-old fillies in for a $25,000 claiming tag, but he would also be her rider.
CHICAGO - While the winner of the Arlington-Washington Futurity, Most Feared, trains here toward a start in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Moonlight Sonata, winner of the Arlington-Washington Lassie, no longer is being considered for the Juvenile Fillies. Her trainer, the Kentucky-based Bill Helmbrecht, said Moonlight Sonata would instead make her next start in the Oct. 26 Green River, a turf stakes at Keeneland.
"As long as all the big ones are going over there, maybe we can slip under a little," Helmbrecht said.
When Walk in the Snow finished second at 30-1 in the $500,000 Super Derby, owner Ginger Taylor was so happy it was almost as if she had won the race.
"If he would have won, it couldn't have been any better," said Taylor. "I felt that I'd won."
In fact, after the race Taylor said to her husband, Herman, "We forgot to take the picture."
Walk in the Snow's entry in the Sept. 21 Super Derby was something of an anniversary present that the Taylors gave to themselves a week after having celebrated 34 years of marriage.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Music's Storm can make up for his seventh-place finish in the Oceanside Stakes at Del Mar in July here on Wednesday in a $50,000 optional claimer.
Music's Storm was an impressive winner of an allowance race at Hollywood Park on July 3, and was well-regarded in the second division of the Oceanside Stakes on July 24. But after fighting for the lead for the first six furlongs under Gary Stevens, Music's Storm faded through the stretch to finish seventh.
"He was rank and he never had time to relax," trainer Eduardo Inda said. "I threw it out."