INGLEWOOD, Calif. - He once was great. He now is old. Kona Gold will try to be both at the same time Sunday, when he returns from a long layoff facing the obvious question. Champion sprinter of 2000, Kona Gold is now 8. You know what they say.
"You always wonder if he's lost a step," trainer Bruce Headley admitted, "but I have had 8- and 9-year-olds beat great horses, so I see no reason why he can't be in the same position."
Shipping horses between Woodbine and Fort Erie racetracks in Ontario, Canada, has been suspended indefinitely while Ontario Racing Commission veterinarians investigate a case of strangles detected in a pony at Fort Erie.
Strangles is a highly contagious disease of the upper respiratory system, caused by the bacterium Streptococcus equi. Symptoms include inflammation of the throat, nasal discharge, and abscesses in the lymph nodes under the jaw.
Mike Smith has many fond memories from his 13-year stint in New York. None of them came in the Belmont Stakes.
Smith won 15 riding titles and many of the most prestigious races on the New York Racing Association circuit, from 1989 to 2001. But he is 0 for 8 in the Belmont with one second-place finish. In 1993, Smith was aboard the Belmont favorite, Prairie Bayou, who fatally broke down during the running of the race.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Channing Way may be overlooked in Sunday's $55,000-added Sunnyvale Handicap at Bay Meadows, but that's pretty much the story of her life.
A 4-year-old filly, Channing Way was sent to trainer Dan Morgan in Arizona as a 2-year-old, in part because she hadn't shown much in her initial training in northern California.
"She was sent to me after she shin bucked," Morgan said. "She hadn't shown much, I guess, and there wasn't much family history. I had her brother, and he was a pretty average horse.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Before things heat up with the running of Saturday's Belmont Stakes, the fourth week of the Belmont Park meet ends with a rare stakes-less Sunday card.
Serving as the day's feature is a second-level allowance race at 11 furlongs on turf. The race features Aplomb, Bicentennial, and J W Black, the second-, third-, and fourth-place finishers from a May 9 race run here at the same conditions.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Accomplished locals Nymphenburg and Mountain Angel will lock horns with New York shippers Siringas and Nouvelle on Woodbine's E.P. Taylor turf course in Sunday's Grade 2, $271,600 Nassau Stakes.
Mountain Angel, the 2001 champion older filly in Canada, exits a front-running score in the allowance prep for the Nassau, which was taken off the turf. The only time she tried the grass, in a one-mile allowance at Keeneland April 13, she set quick fractions before weakening in midstretch, and ended up third.
AUBURN, Wash. - Seven intrepid 3-year-old fillies have come forward to challenge Lasting Code in Sunday's one mile, $45,000 Kent Handicap at Emerald Downs.
Lasting Code, who was recently purchased privately by Jerre Paxton's Northwest Farms, will surely go off as an odds-on favorite because of her record of four stakes wins from five starts. Her lone defeat came in her only attempt around two turns, however, and it is the distance question that she must answer in the Kent.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Undefeated Salt Grinder and Commodore Craig, winner of the City of Vancouver Stakes in his last start, head an excellent field of 3-year-olds in the 6 1/2 furlong stakes this Sunday at Hastings Park. The $35,000 Klondike drew six horses and goes as the seventh race.
There will be a sizzling pace in the Klondike. Both Salt Grinder, who set an Emerald Downs track record for 5 1/2 furlongs in his last start, and Commodore Craig have tremendous speed. What will happen when they hook up Sunday is anybody's guess.
CALGARY, Alberta - A conditioned allowance headlines Sunday's eight-race program and drew a field of seven 3-year-olds who all are stretching out to a mile for the first time.
Trainer Dale Saunders will send out Big Creek in the $15,500 race. Quincy Welch will ride Big Creek, a long-striding son of Chapel Creek who closed strongly sprinting two weeks ago to dead-heat for second.
The additional two furlongs should suit Big Creek, an Alberta-bred gelding whose best races have come from just off the pace.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Joe Bravo is expected to miss the rest of the Monmouth meet after suffering a broken left wrist during the seventh race on Thursday. Bravo had surgery on his wrist Thursday night and was expected to leave the hospital Saturday, said Bravo's agent, Danny Mellul. Healing time is three to four months, according to orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brian Torpey, who operated on Bravo.
Bravo was taken to Monmouth Medical Center immediately after the spill and was operated on very quickly.
