Nancy Alberts may be a newcomer to the national stage, but she is quickly making up for lost time. Alberts nearly scored an upset in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday with 45-1 shot Magic Weisner, the gelding she bred, owns, and trains, even gallops. And now that Alberts has decided to run Magic Weisner back in the June 8 Belmont Stakes, she will be making a rare trip outside her Maryland base.
ELMONT, N.Y. - You can tell by the big grin on his face that trainer Howard Zucker is enjoying his homecoming as he prepares Crafty C. T. for Monday's $750,000 Metropolitan Mile Handicap at Belmont Park.
Zucker, 54, who has lived in California for the past 20 years, grew up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He occasionally visits his sister in Long Island, but it has been many years since Zucker visited Belmont Park, where he first began working in the 1970's as a hotwalker and groom for, among others, trainers T. J. Kelly and George Poole.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Allen Jerkens shoots for his fourth Peter Pan win on Saturday at Belmont Park with Puzzlement, an improving colt who could earn a berth in the $1 million Belmont Stakes on June 8 with a good performance.
The $200,000 Peter Pan, a Grade 2 race, could yield a few starters for the Belmont Stakes, where War Emblem will make his bid to become racing's first Triple Crown winner since 1978.
ELMONT, N.Y. - There are only five horses entered in Friday's $54,000 allowance feature at Belmont Park, but handicappers looking for a "singleton" in multi-race exotics may be forced to look elsewhere.
This competitive six-furlong sprint, which is carded as the eighth race, is for older fillies and mares who are non-winners of $5,805 three times other than maiden, claiming, starter, or restricted since last Sept. 1. From the rail out, a case can reasonably be made for any among them: Belle Artiste, Grandma Lu, Maddie May, Honey Eyed, and Crescent Coast.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - All things being equal, Miss Seffens is probably the best horse in the Friday feature at Churchill Downs.
But one key variable may make things unequal: The $61,100, five-furlong race is scheduled for the turf course, a surface for which Island Echo has displayed an extraordinary fondness.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The seventh race on Friday at Hollywood Park may produce a few starters for the $500,000 Californian Stakes on June 15.
Futural, who was second in the 2001 Californian, meets a field that includes the graded stakes winners Momentum and Out of Mind; Pie n Burger, an allowance winner; and Truly a Judge, one of the top claims of 2001 in California.
Run over 1 1/16 miles, the race features two older horses trained by Craig Dollase - Futural and Momentum - who are looking to rebound from recent losses.
AUBURN, Wash. - Live racing could return to Spokane's Playfair Race Course in 2003 as a result of the sale of the track to Eric Nelson, a Las Vegas real estate broker.
Nelson, who told the Washington Horse Racing Commission of his interest in Playfair at a meeting in April, owns and operates Wyoming Downs and four card rooms in Washington, including two in Kennewick. He purchased the historic track from Jack Pring, whose Appleway Leasing Corp. has owned Playfair since 1981.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Jockey Greta Kuntzweiler is expected to be out of action about three months after having suffered a compressed vertebra in a Tuesday morning spill during training hours at Churchill Downs.
Kuntzweiler, 26, was aboard a Greg Foley-trained horse who was pulling up from a gallop when the horse suddenly stumbled and fell, throwing her. Both horse and rider soon got to their feet and appeared okay, but Kuntzweiler's agent, John Herbstreit, convinced her to go to nearby Caritas Medical Center for an evaluation.
Santa Anita will retroactively pay an estimated $1 million to owners who participated in overnight races at the recently concluded winter-spring meeting after purse revenue from a variety of sources, including phone and Internet betting, was higher than projected.
A final figure will not be available until early June, according to Mike Harlow, the track's racing secretary.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Dream Launcher, fresh off a third-place finish in the Grade 3 Eclipse Handicap, will be a short price in Friday's featured fourth race, a $100,000 optional claimer.
Dream Launcher, a 4-year-old owned and trained by Audre Cappuccitti, could be the lone speed in the 1 1/16-mile race. He made an impact in the second start of his career last spring, finishing a close second as a maiden here in the six-furlong Woodstock Stakes.
