JAMAICA, N.Y. - With five wins, two seconds, and two thirds from its last 14 starters, Ernie Paragallo's Paraneck Stable is one of the hottest outfits on the grounds at Aqueduct.
To listen to Paragallo, it is not a coincidence that the hot streak has coincided with the firing of racing manager and veterinarian Steve Allday and trainer Richard Lundy earlier this month.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - After facing graded company in her previous two starts, Stormy Frolic should relish the drop in class when she takes on six other 3-year-old fillies in Sunday's $75,000 Christmas Past Stakes. The 1 1/16-mile Christmas Past is the final stakes race of the 2002 Gulfstream Park meet, which ends on Wednesday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The 2002 Gulfstream Park racing season ends Wednesday, but for the track's owner, Frank Stronach's Magna Entertainment, the job of renovating the facility and preparing for the 2003 meet and beyond has just begun.
Magna is poised to begin an ambitious three-year, three-phase plan for Gulfstream Park, which includes the construction of a new simulcast center, concert area, and state-of-the-art clubhouse as well as the demolition of the track's grandstand.
, the brilliant but star-crossed 3-year-old trained by Bob Baffert, has a soft-tissue injury in a leg that will cause him to miss Saturday's $325,000 Coolmore Lexington Stakes at Keeneland, and require him to recuperate on a farm for three months, Baffert said Friday morning.
Baffert said the injury was discovered on Thursday, after Officer had a routine training gallop at Churchill Downs. "He has a suspicious-looking area," Baffert said. "Nothing is torn, but it's the kind of thing that if you go on, you've got problems."
ARCADIA, Calif. - There is a carryover of $117,360 for the final Friday program of the winter-spring meeting at Santa Anita.
The nine-race program begins at 3 p.m.; the pick six covers races four through nine.
Here are the changes for the pick six races. In the fourth race, Six G's is scratched, leaving a field of 11 to contest a maiden race on the hillside turf course. Great White Father is the 9-5 morning-line favorite.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Trainer Mark Hennig still believes Eclipse Award voters were mistaken when they overlooked Raging Fever in favor of Caressing for the 2-year-old filly championship in 2000.
Sure, Raging Fever was defeated in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, but Hennig believes her five straight wins - including two Grade 1's - that preceded the Cup were enough to earn the honors. Eclipse voters may have held it against Raging Fever that all of her wins that year were around one turn.
CHICAGO - Chicago Six has been down before, down so low that he got stuck as a lower-level claimer. He rose up to become one of the best Illinois-breds in recent history, so don't bury him yet.
It will be tempting to do so Saturday when Chicago Six runs in the $200,000 National Jockey Club Handicap at Sportsman's Park. A year ago, the race put an exclamation point on Chicago Six's ascent, when he beat the classy Guided Tour for his first graded stakes win. But three weeks ago, in a restricted Illinois-bred stakes, Chicago Six finished fifth of nine at odds of 3-5.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Golden Apples will have to overcome a bruised foot if she runs in Saturday's $250,000 Santa Barbara Handicap. Trainer Ben Cecil on Thursday was optimistic that Golden Apples, who has won three stakes in the last year, would start in the race, the meeting's championship for females on turf.
"I'm more encouraged than yesterday," Cecil said Thursday. "I won't run her unless she's 100 percent."
Cecil said that Golden Apples did not go to the track on Thursday, a day after she worked on turf.
CALGARY, Alberta - A major prep for the May 4 Stampede Park Sprint Championship attracted five entrants and will go as the featured eighth race Saturday afternoon.
The open allowance at six furlongs carries a $20,300 purse and is headed by Timely Ruckus, who will be the favorite.
AUBURN, Wash. - Seventeen 3-year-olds, many of whom seem destined for stakes competition, will be showcased in Saturday's split $50,000 optional claiming feature at Emerald Downs.
All but one of the eight colts and geldings in the 5 1/2-furlong feature's first division will be making their 3-year-old debuts. That gives a significant edge to Chief Yatahay, who has won two of his three starts this year at Golden Gate.