Lone Star Park near Dallas was granted $2.9 million for capital improvements for the Breeders' Cup from the City of Grand Prairie Sports Facilities Development Corp., on Friday. The track has been selected as a conditional host for the Breeders' Cup in 2005, but could be called upon to house the event as early as 2004.
The funds will be used to expand Lone Star's existing seating capacity of about 10,000 to 50,000. The money will also be used to make improvements to the stable area.
Emerald Downs has announced a new handicapping contest that will send a record 12 qualifiers to the Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship. The Ultimate Qualifying Tournament, scheduled for Sunday, July 28, will offer $11,600 in prize money.
Approximately 50 tracks, OTB's, and casinos around the country will host regional qualifying events for the national championship, to be held in January 2003 in Las Vegas. Venues normally send four qualifiers to the national finals; Emerald is the first track ever to send its top 12 finishers to the Las Vegas finals.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - After a five-year absence, Leonard Lavin's Glen Hill Farm and trainer Tom Proctor are back at Arlington. But don't expect as much production from their short string here this year as was seen in the 1990's.
Proctor and Lavin, who lives in Glencoe, Ill., were fixtures here in the 1990's. They won 21 races in 1992 and campaigned One Dreamer at Arlington for three years, including 1994, the year she won the Breeders' Cup Distaff at 47-1.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Nearly 3 1/2 years ago, Grits'n Hard Toast was regarded as a possible contender for the 125th Kentucky Derby. He had won the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 16, 1999, but he soon was off the Derby trail following a couple of disappointing efforts.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Bold World has been pointing for the Grade 3, $250,000 Azalea Breeders' Cup at Calder on July 13, but she may have one intermediate test before then in Sunday's $50,000 Dearly Precious Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Monmouth Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Richard Schosberg said picking between the Tom Fool and Poker - a pair of graded stakes run at Belmont Park this week - for Affirmed Success is the kind of decision he wishes he had to make more often.
"These are the decisions you want to make," Schosberg said Friday at his Belmont barn. "I agonize over what claiming races to go in."
Teague, who ran fourth as the favorite in his turf debut earlier this month in the $100,000 Canterbury Breeders' Cup Derby, will remain on the grass Sunday for the featured seventh race at Lone Star Park, a one-mile optional claimer worth $32,000.
Teague had won three straight one-mile races on dirt leading into the June 9 stakes at Canterbury, with his biggest score a 5 1/4-length win in the $30,000 Nebraska Derby. He is part of a deep field at Lone Star, including Thunder Fish, Kris's Sleigh, Dynacard, and Bourbon N Coke.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Last August, trainer Bobby Frankel had successive weekends when his stable won major races on both coasts, seemingly dominating racing at Del Mar and Saratoga.
This year, he is hoping to start the same success on the Fourth of July weekend when he will have starters in major stakes at Belmont Park, Hollywood Park, Monmouth Park, and Prairie Meadows.
"Hopefully, we can do it all over again," Frankel said.
MIAMI - What quietly began as June Jam at Calder in the mid-1990's, the concept of running several lucrative sprint races on a single program, has now blossomed into the Summit of Speed. It's the richest day of sprint racing in the country and one of the biggest events on the south Florida racing calendar.
AUBURN, Wash. - The local 3-year-old filly division underwent a major shake-up when the leading lights last got together in the one-mile Kent Handicap on June 2 at Emerald Downs. Lasting Code, who seemed perched firmly atop the division after a pair of impressive sprint stakes wins, never got into the race and finished last of eight at 3-5, while Dolly's Hit Lady, previously a denizen of the claiming ranks, shot to the head of the class with a four-length tally in a highly creditable 1:35.60.