COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - Saturday night's Red Cloud Handicap may have been the most exciting race of the meet. Canyon De Oro, ridden by J. D. Hundley, went wire to wire, holding on by a nose after a stretch duel with favorite Bulldog George.
For Canyon De Oro's owner, Gary Rotermund, and his wife, Shelia, the victory temporarily took their minds off a terrible event.
The Pennsylvania Governor's Cup Handicap, Penn National's most prestigious stakes race, has undergone two major changes this season.
The Governor's Cup, which will be run for the 30th time Saturday night, remains on the turf, but has been shortened in distance from 1 1/16 miles to five furlongs. The purse has also been reduced, from $100,000 to $50,000.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Davids Expectation, perhaps the hottest 3-year-old at Woodbine, will experiment on the grass on Friday in the $80,900 allowance prep for the Play the King Handicap, a Grade 3 event on Aug. 17.
Davids Expectation is coupled in the Mockingbird Farm entry with last year's Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap winner, Exciting Story, who was entered for the main track only.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Apprentice jockey Chantal Sutherland had set three goals for herself heading into the current season.
"I wanted to be a top 10 rider, and to go for another Sovereign" as top apprentice, said Sutherland. "And my ultimate goal was to be considered for an Eclipse."
Sutherland rode 44 winners at Woodbine to rank 17th in the overall standings last year and was a runaway winner of the Sovereign Award as Canada's outstanding apprentice.
DEL MAR, Calif. - First it was knee chips, then an 11th-hour sale before the Kentucky Derby, then a controversy regarding bonus money, and then a stumble at the start of the Belmont Stakes when attempting to win the Triple Crown. With War Emblem, winner of the Derby and Preakness Stakes, nothing has ever been business as usual.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - In the last decade of the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth, the crowd has usually been able to cheer for a hometown favorite. While this year's field does not include any Monmouth-based horses, Puck has turned into the local rooting choice with his extended stay here following a win in the Long Branch Stakes on July 13.
Amidst the roller-coaster ride of the Haskell field, which saw defections of two major stars, and the status of War Emblem change three times, Puck has remained the first horse committed and the one constant.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Much as trainer Christopher Paasch would love to visit Saratoga this summer, he wasn't quite ready to go this weekend. Had he been forced to, though, he would have sent his good 3-year-old sprinter Mighty David to the Amsterdam Stakes on Saturday. But Paasch got the spot for which he had hoped, right here at Del Mar, when an optional-claiming race on Thursday's card filled.
Paasch had been shopping for the right spot for Mighty David. He entered Mighty David in last Saturday's Bing Crosby Breeders' Cup Handicap here, then thought better of it and scratched.
CHICAGO - If you're going to play races at Arlington, you'd better be prepared to deal with a fundamental issue: Kentucky.
Kentucky shippers trickle north to Chicago throughout the year, but with the Churchill spring-summer meet in the books the trickle becomes a torrent this time of year.
There's even a weekly shuttle ferrying horses between Louisville and Arlington Heights. Grey Ballet recently took it, and she's one of nine horses entered in Arlington's featured eighth race Thursday, a fourth-level turf allowance with a $75,000 claiming option taken by two horses.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - As impressive as Admirality Arch was winning his career debut at Belmont, trainer Todd Pletcher easily could have been tempted to run the promising 2-year-old back in the Sanford Stakes on the second day of the Saratoga meet.
Instead, Pletcher decided to take a more conservative route, opting to run Admirality Arch in an entry-level allowance race that is the co-feature on Thursday's card at Saratoga, along with a preliminary allowance race on the Mellon turf course for older fillies and mares.
AUBURN, Wash. - Weave It to Me will attempt to win for the fourth time in five career starts in Thursday's feature at Emerald Downs, a 6 1/2-furlong test for $16,000 3-year-olds, which drew a field of eight.
Weave It to Me, who is trained by Doris Harwood, won his only start last year, on the maiden $8,000 level. He showed little in a troubled outing on the $16,000 level in his 3-year-old debut, but won when dropped to the $6,250 plateau in June and repeated against $12,500 company last time out on July 18, when he ran six furlongs in a crisp 1:10.40 to win by half a length.
