EAST BOSTON, Mass. - Step With Style, 2001 New England Horse of the Year, defends her title in Saturday's $30,000 My Fair Lady Stakes.
Many of her competitors in the My Fair Lady, for fillies and mares going a mile and 70 yards on the turf, amassed impressive records over the mild winter. But Step With Style appears to have a class edge, despite going winless in eight starts since winning the Rockingham Breeders' Cup Handicap last summer.
Horses are bought and sold every day, but never has a horse been bought as close as three and a half weeks to the Kentucky Derby and then won the race as War Emblem did this year. The process that brought War Emblem to his new owner, Prince Ahmed Salman's The Thoroughbred Corporation, and his trainer, Bob Baffert, was the combination of a willing seller, an eager buyer, and an industrious bloodstock agent who knew the parties and put them together.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Bob Baffert and Steve Asmussen shared a laugh as training wound down Wednesday morning at Churchill Downs. Asmussen theorized - not without considerable amazement - how differently things might have been in the Kentucky Derby if One Tuff Fox had been permitted to run in the April 6 Illinois Derby.
"If the groom for One Tuff Fox doesn't take a shower, then he hooks War Emblem early and everything turns out different," Asmussen told Baffert. "War Emblem doesn't win the Illinois Derby. You don't want to buy him. He doesn't run here. Everything is different."
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Rick Violette said he was losing sleep, having not won a stakes with Free of Love. Violette must have slept like a baby Wednesday night.
Making his 10th start in a stakes, Free of Love finally got the job done, rallying three wide on the turn and holding off a game Dayton Flyer through the stretch to win the $112,500, Grade 3 Westchester Handicap by 1 1/4 lengths on opening day at Belmont Park. It was another length back to Country Be Gold in third.
Churchill Downs Inc., the owner of six U.S. racetracks, including Hollywood Park and Arlington Park, had a net loss of $12 million in the first quarter of 2002, $1 million more than it lost in the same quarter last year.
Revenues in the quarter were $31 million, down 2 percent from revenues of $31.7 million in the first three months of 2001. The $12 million net loss translated into a loss of 92 cents per share, compared with a net loss of 84 cents a share in 2001.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Six 3-year-old colts and geldings who exhibit good current form meet in Friday night's feature race at Bay Meadows.
The six-furlong $40,000 optional claiming race has two runners who won their last starts, two others who won their next-to-last races, and two others who have been second and third in their past two starts.
Rio's Chase, trained by Bill Delia, seems the sharpest in the field after beating a $32,000 starter allowance field by four in his last start. Before that, he was second in his first race against winners after setting the pace.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Kudos, winner of the Grade 1 Oaklawn Handicap on April 6, has been sidelined with a bone chip in the left ankle, trainer Richard Mandella said.
Mandella said surgery is scheduled for Thursday and that Kudos will be out at least until the fall. He was expected to play a role in the handicap division and possibly race in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Arlington Park in October.
"There's no chance we can make the Breeders' Cup," Mandella said. "He might make it back by fall to start training. We'll point for next year."
ELMONT, N.Y. - Real Cozzy, a Grade 2 winner and multiple Grade 1-placed filly on dirt, will make her turf debut Friday in a third-level allowance race at Belmont Park at one mile. First post Friday is 3 p.m. as Belmont kicks off its Friday Sunset Racing series.
As a 3-year-old, Real Cozzy won the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks and was second in the Kentucky Oaks and Mother Goose - both Grade 1 races. After poor efforts in the Alabama and Gazelle, Real Cozzy was put on the shelf for the remainder of the year with recurring hind end problems.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Early last month at Keeneland, Carl Nafzger ran not one, not two, but three fillies in the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes.
The Ashland was won by Take Charge Lady, but Nafzger was all smiles afterward because of how well his fillies had performed: Take the Cake finished second, Belterra was third, and Cordoba was fifth.
Since then, however, the promise of the Ashland has yielded little but disappointment.
