LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Take Charge Lady, who figured as an overwhelming favorite Friday in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico, was scratched from the race early Tuesday after being diagnosed with a lung infection.
Take Charge Lady worked a sharp three furlongs in 35 seconds Tuesday morning at Churchill Downs. Afterward, she was given an endoscopic examination, and it was determined that she "had pretty much mucous" in her lungs, said trainer Ken McPeek.
STANTON, Del. - Trainer Graham Motion was to have been interviewed by a Philadelphia television station Tuesday morning for his upcoming appearance in Saturday's Preakness Stakes. But, hockey's Philadelphia Flyers announced the hiring of a new coach, and the station canceled.
A quiet, unassuming Englishman training in the mid-Atlantic region, Motion kept his low profile intact for at least one more day. But his cover may be about to be blown.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Since jockey Jerry Bailey and trainer Bill Mott teamed up to win five races during opening week at Belmont Park, it seems foolhardy to ignore the potent duo in Week 2. Just don't expect to find high odds on the Bailey/Mott runners.
On Thursday, Bailey, who overall has won nine races during the first five days of the meet, and Mott combine forces in the third race, a $40,000 maiden claimer, with Safe Expectation, and in the featured eighth race, a third-level allowance, with Zafonic's Song.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Two Item Limit lost last year's Breeders' Cup Distaff and Gazelle at Belmont Park, but they might be the best races in her career so far.
Two Item Limit will need another supreme effort when she takes on the formidable duo of Raging Fever and Victory Ride, a pair of Grade 1 winners, in Saturday's $200,000 Shuvee at Belmont. As of Tuesday, Shiny Band was the only other confirmed starter in the Grade 2 Shuvee, a mile dirt race.
Two Item Limit is seeking her first win since capturing the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico a year ago.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - After winning the Grade 2 Explosive Bid Handicap in March 2001 at Fair Grounds, Tijiyr seemed on his way to turf stardom.
Things haven't worked out that way. In six subsequent starts, Tijiyr failed to win once, and after his last race in February, trainer Niall O'Callaghan decided to take a step back and give Tijiyr some time to regroup.
Trainer John Kimmel has an ambitious summer planned for A New Twist, targeting such Grade 1 races as the Prioress and the Test. First, Kimmel hopes to get through the spring on a high note when he sends out A New Twist in the $100,000 Miss Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.
The Miss Preakness, a six-furlong race running as a Grade 3 for the first time, is the first of 13 stakes to be run at Pimlico this week, highlighted, of course, by Saturday's 127th Preakness. A field of 10 was entered for the Miss Preakness, though trainer Shug McGaughey said he is likely to scratch Database.
When Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, was announced as the tentative site for the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships in 2005, you could hear the whoops and hollers from management at this track from New York to California.
And now that a new site might be needed to host the 2004 Breeders' Cup, the same can-do spirit that impressed the Breeders' Cup selection committee has made Lone Star the choice to potentially host the Breeders' Cup one year earlier.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Horse racing is a game of opinions, and Thursday's feature at Bay Meadows is a race crying out for a strong opinion.
The one-mile turf allowance feature for nonwinners of two races appears a wide open race. The difference between the best Beyer Speed Figures for six of the eight entrants is a scant five points.
Handicappers with a strong opinion on the race stand to make a healthy profit - if they are correct.
Only two runners in the field have turf victories, and one of them, Sharp Boi, has a 1-for-26 career record.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Sky Jack's runaway 5 1/2-length win Sunday in the Grade 2 Mervyn LeRoy Handicap established the gray as one of the favorites for the Grade 1, 1 1/4-mile Hollywood Gold Cup on July 14, which will be his next start. "The one thing I know for sure is I won't run him back for a couple months," Sky Jack's trainer, Doug O'Neill, said Tuesday. The Gold Cup, O'Neill said, "is definitely the target."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Geo Quercus is eligible for an easier race than the classified allowance that will bring his U.S. debut Thursday at Hollywood Park. In fact, conventional class handicapping says Geo Quercus would be all-out to win a three-other-than, much less the high-level turf mile he tries Thursday.