NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Saturday's $40,000 Angenora will be Thistledown's first stakes of the year. The six-furlong race has drawn a competitive field of 11 Ohio-breds, including three stable couplings.
The Angenora brings out Ohio's 2001 champion 3-year-old filly, Ashwood CC, who will be co-highweighted with Paige's Boo at 120 pounds.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - A wide-open field of eight has been entered for Saturday's $25,000 Tondi-Budweiser Handicap at six furlongs.
Abbi's Choice is topweighted at 122 pounds off a solid third-place finish to Rub and Leaping Plum in the Pepsi Sprint on March 23 in his local debut. Abbi's Choice, a front-runner, is still in search of his first win this year. Perry Compton has the ride for owner Gary McDonald and trainer Kelly Von Hemel from post 3.
PHOENIX - For Singin N D Shower, procrastinating is a good thing.
A 7-year-old gelding, he does his best work when he sits back, waits till the last second, and then blasts home. He didn't follow that tack last time and paid the price, but a return to that style would make him the horse to beat in Saturday's $14,200 feature at Turf Paradise. The $25,000 optional claimer at a mile on the turf has lured a field of seven.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - His name won't be found among the leaders in the jockey standings for the 2002 Gulfstream Park session. But ask Joe Bravo how he feels about the meet so far and he will answer with just one word - ecstatic.
Bravo did not join the local jockey colony until March 23 after spending nine months on the sidelines recuperating from a broken fibia and tibia in his left leg suffered last summer at Monmouth Park. In the three weeks since his return, however, Bravo has already won 12 races, including three on Thursday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla.- With less than a week remaining in the meet, most of the New York- and Kentucky-based outfits have departed south Florida. But trainer Mark Hennig remains and will send out the two top contenders, Final Table and Gygistar, in Saturday's $75,000 Hallandale Beach Handicap.
Final Table will share highweight of 120 pounds along with Juggernaut in the six-furlong Hallandale Beach. Gygistar gets in a pound lighter at 119. Danielles Magic, Barnacle Steve, Capture the Silver, and All Line round out the lineup.
VANCOUVER, B. C. - Hastings Park begins its 2002 season this Saturday with nine races including the $35,000 Fair Lady Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. But because of a shortage of horses ready to run, this Sunday and Wednesday's cards have been scrapped. Post time for the first race is 1:23 P.M.
"With a virus going around and the poor weather we've had this winter, there are a lot of horses on the grounds that are about a week away from running," said Phil Heard, general manager of Hastings.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The speedy duo of Rare Friends and Wild Whiskey, first and second, in the restricted Achievement Handicap, will renew their rivalry in the Woodstock Stakes on Saturday at Woodbine.
Five other 3-year-olds were entered in the six-furlong race, which is worth $136,750.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - It's a done deal. Well, almost a done deal.
That's pretty much the way Woodbine's attempt to take over the Pacific Racing Association, operators of Hastings Park Racecourse, has gone.
It looked like the deal, which has been ongoing for approximately a year and a half, was finished at last when the PRA and the Woodbine Entertainment Group scheduled a joint press conference for last Wednesday. But at the last minute it was canceled and another press conference has been set for May 1.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Far from the hustle and bustle, on the outlying edge of the backstretch, Fancy As quietly checked into trainer Brian Palaniuk's barn here recently after a winter in California with Bob Baffert.
Fancy As was a horse of the year and divisional champion in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba last year, when he won eight of nine starts and $431,941 for Linda Smith and her husband, trainer Red Smith. But Fancy As was outpointed by Win City, Ontario's top 3-year-old male, for the division's Sovereign Award title.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - In the 67 years that Keeneland has been conducting horse races, on only a handful of occasions has a trainer won the same stakes race as many as three years in a row.
Harry Trotsek was the only trainer to pull off such a feat twice, winning the Ben Ali Handicap four consecutive times and the Phoenix Handicap three times in a row, both streaks coming in the 1950's. Only two other trainers have registered three straight wins in a Keeneland stakes race: Pat Devereux Sr. in the Fayette (1969-71) and Victor "Whitey" Doleski in the Ben Ali (1972-74).