INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Only the Best, a two-time stakes winner this fall, will miss the $125,000 Hollywood Prevue Stakes on Nov. 23 due to a tender shin, trainer Brian Lynch said.
The setback was detected following Only the Best's two-length win in the six-furlong Sunny Slope Stakes at Santa Anita Oct. 19. In late September, Only the Best won his first stakes in the Malcolm Anderson Stakes at Bay Meadows, scoring by four lengths.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Nick Zito is proving that patience is not only a virtue, it's profitable as well.
Since Oct. 9, between Keeneland, Churchill, and Aqueduct, Zito has won 12 races, eight with 2-year-old maidens. After finishing in a tie for second in the Keeneland trainer standings, Zito has five wins at Aqueduct, second only to Richard Dutrow Jr.'s six.
Sunland Park near El Paso, Texas, hopes to crack the Kentucky Derby prep market next spring and lure some nationally prominent 3-year-olds to its $500,000 WinStar Derby, a new 1 1/16-mile race to be run March 30. The WinStar will be the richest race in track history and will serve as the middle leg of a $250,000 bonus series tied into the Lone Star Derby.
ALBANY, Calif. - Was the first race Wednesday on opening day at Golden Gate Fields an omen of things to come at the current meeting?
Yes, but it didn't reveal much.
Projected from the first race: Jerry Hollendorfer will be the meet's leading trainer and Russell Baze the leading jockey. Of course, that prediction would probably have been made even if northern California's leading trainer-rider duo had not won the 5 1/2-furlong, $5,000 claimer with Brite Bounty, who was dropping from the $12,500 level.
ANDERSON, Ind. - Ladies Night, which will be held at Hoosier Park for the second time Saturday, has become somewhat of an unexpected hit. This year's edition will bring together 11 female riders from the Midwest who will compete in five races on the program.
Director of publicity Tammy Knox credited Chris Thompson-Johns, head of the marketing department here last year, with coming up with the idea. It coincided with the publication of "Win, Place, Show: A Female Fan Guide to Thoroughbred Racing," by Betsy Berns.
Prairie Meadows will seek 100 Thoroughbred racing dates in 2003 from the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission later this month, according to director of racing Derron Heldt.
The 52-day Thoroughbred meeting would run from April 18 to June 28 and be followed by a 48-day mixed meet that would run from July 4 through Sept. 13. After much discussion about switching to one longer mixed meet, the racing schedule maintains the two-meet structure that has been in effect here since the mid 1990's.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Abraham Katryan didn't expect to be overly active on the stakes front in the remaining weeks of the Ontario racing season.
However, recent developments have led to some changes in direction, and Katryan now finds himself with candidates for the next three stakes this meet.
STICKNEY, Ill. - In 1986, trainer Gene Cilio and his brother, Ron DeCicilia, traveled to a Keeneland sale of breeding stock. The idea was to buy several mares and establish a breeding program in Illinois, taking advantage of state-subsidized purse enhancements with a breed-to-race operation. The idea was a good one.
Sixteen years later, Cilio has homebred horses to enter in all six of the statebred stakes at Hawthorne on Saturday. All have at least a reasonable chance, and something like a three-win day for Cilio would come as no surprise.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Apprentice rider John McKee guided 33-1 shot There Runs Hattie to a come-from-behind victory in the Tuesday feature at Churchill Downs, continuing a string of high-priced horses who won over a rain-soaked track.
McKee was able to get late-running There Runs Hattie up by a neck over Savorthetime in the eighth-race feature, a $44,600 allowance sprint for fillies and mares. McKee has eight wins through eight programs at the fall meet, trailing only perennial leading rider Pat Day (12).