DEL MAR, Calif. - Slowly, methodically, and with great care, trainer Eduardo Inda has let Kela progress through his allowance conditions. Now, after four victories and three second-place finishes in eight starts, it is time for Kela to, at last, step up and face stakes competition.
"He's ready," Inda said.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Jockey Eddie Delahoussaye is scheduled to return Monday after being thrown in a spill in Friday's sixth race.
Delahoussaye spent Friday night at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla where he underwent X-rays that proved negative. Because he did not receive attention until later in the evening, he was kept overnight, according to jockey agent Scotty McClellan. McClellan booked mounts for Delahoussaye over the weekend, while Delahoussaye's regular agent, Ray Kravagna, was traveling.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Making the jump from a maiden win straight into stakes company is usually a formidable proposition. But Ibn Al Haitham was not your run-of-the-mill maiden when he raced on the grass for the first time and posted a convincing 9 1/2-length victory earlier in the meet.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Steady Ruckus makes his fourth appearance in the Halton on Monday and seeks his second consecutive score in the 1 1/8-mile turf race for 3-year-olds and upward. The $106,650 Halton is one of six sales stakes on Monday that are restricted to horses who went through the ring as yearlings at the local Canadian-bred sales.
Owned by Ed Lang, Steady Ruckus finished eighth in his first Halton, second to Bristol Pistol in the 2000 Halton, and turned the tables on that since-retired mare last year.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Jockey Anderson Ward, who is selective in accepting mounts here, rides the favorite in both the Agassiz Stakes and Distaff Stakes on Monday. Two Sales Stakes, one for 2-year-old colts and geldings and one for 2-year-old fillies, also will be run here Monday.
Both the Agassiz and Distaff go at one mile, carry a purse of $30,000, and are for Manitoba-breds. The Agassiz is for 3-year-olds and upward and the Distaff is restricted to fillies and mares.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - Right Stop will be out to resume his winning ways here in Monday's Puss N Boots Stakes, the first of twin $55,000 stakes scheduled for 1 1/16 miles on turf on the Labor Day program at Fort Erie.
The Puss N Boots is for male runners, while the Miss Moneypenny is for females. All must have had at least two starts at the present meeting.
Both events drew full fields of 12, and the Puss N Boots has an also-eligible list of four.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - It didn't take long for owner-trainer Shauna Ferguson to change her mind regarding the possible retirement of Kid Katabatic.
After the Kid, a 9-year-old gelding, finished last in the B.C. Cup Classic on Aug. 5, Ferguson planned to turn him out for the rest of the year and possibly retire him.
But Kid Katabatic has always had a mind of his own, and when he arrived at the farm of his part owners Mel and Lindsey Russell, he showed his displeasure with the idea of a life of leisure.
CINCINNATI - Like Steve Cauthen before him, John McKee is a local boy dominating the River Downs standings as a young apprentice.
The similarities don't go much farther than that, since McKee, 21, obviously has a long way to go before he attains the kind of fame and fortune that Cauthen found in his Hall of Fame career.
CINCINNATI - River Downs is considered a little racetrack, but that doesn't mean big horses never race here.
River's signature race, the Cradle Stakes, has produced horses of national significance. It happened in the mid-1980's when Spend a Buck won the Cradle before becoming a Kentucky Derby champion the following spring, and it happened last year when Harlan's Holiday won the Cradle before capturing such major races as the Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - A rematch of Bay Meadows's race of the year in 2001 will not take place in Monday's $100,000 California Turf Championship.
The one-mile race for California-breds was expected to match millionaire Native Desert and Spinelessjellyfish, who dead-heated in the 2001 running.
Juan Garcia said Saturday that 9-year-old Native Desert, a three-time winner of the race, had injured an ankle during a Friday gallop.
"It was a little swollen," he said. "I don't want to take a chance."