TORONTO, Ontario - The Prince of Wales Stakes will offer a record purse of $500,000, up $150,000 from last year, as the centerpiece of this year's stakes schedule at Fort Erie.
The list of 21 stakes, including four $60,000 races that have been relocated from Woodbine, is worth a total of $19.3 million, an increase of $520,000 from last year.
Usually when a graded stakes winner competes in a $50,000 stakes race, the opposition runs scared. Yet when Miss Pickums, a Grade 2 winner who has earned more than $303,000, returns Saturday at Turfway Park in the $50,000 Wintergreen Stakes, the opposition will simply be running.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. - Jockey Abby Fuller got plenty of cheers and a confidence boost when she teamed with Lyd's a Winnah to take Tuesday's second race at her hometown track, Suffolk Downs.
Since race riding has taken a backseat to raising a family and assisting her husband, trainer Mike Catalano Jr., with their small string at Aqueduct, Fuller's first win of the year worked wonders on her morale.
Case of the Blues, the runner-up in last year's Conniver at Laurel Park, takes another crack at the stakes this Saturday.
Case of the Blues, the likely favorite among the nine Maryland-bred fillies and mares entered in the $60,000 Conniver, is a winner of three of her last four starts.
Case of the Blues, trained by Tony Dutrow, is a powerhouse at Laurel Park, winning half of the 12 starts she has made at the Maryland track.
PHOENIX - Freespool can flat fly early, and he's the defending champ in Saturday's $100,000 Phoenix Gold Cup, the meet's marquee race. But in this game there's considerable emphasis on recent accomplishment, and Freespool hasn't done much lately.
Freespool's recent form decline has apparently given optimism to many others: 10 are entered against Freespool, the 121-pound highweight, in the six-furlong Gold Cup.
When bettors sit down to handicap Saturday's Lost Code at Sportsman's Park, they might find themselves paying a lot of attention to a pair of 7-year-old Illinois-breds. Magic Doe and Tic N Tim are the 120-pound co-highweights in the race, a $100,000 handicap at six furlongs that is the first stakes of the meet.
Magna Entertainment Corp., has entered into an agreement to purchase Lone Star Park near Dallas for approximately $100 million, the track announced Wednesday night. The sale is subject to regulatory approvals and conditions, and is expected to be closed in the second quarter of 2002.
MEC currently operates 10 racetracks, including Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., Gulfstream Park in Hallendale, Fla., and Remington Park in Oklahoma City, which is located three hours north of Lone Star.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - In any other sport, the fans might go so far as to throw tomatoes at the person they believe responsible for poor performance. Or heckle, or boo.
But after Pleasant County burned nearly $400,000 in show wagers by finishing fifth in the seventh race Feb. 15 at Gulfstream Park, trainer Mark Hennig was not subjected to any such vengeance.
"I think that guy was too far away," Hennig quipped Wednesday.
NEW ORLEANS - It wouldn't be a huge stretch to call Fair Grounds's Friday feature the second division of the New Orleans Handicap. Had their winters gone in a slightly different direction, both Dollar Bill and Connected might have run Sunday in the New Orleans Handicap. It turned out neither was ready for that race, and instead they face off Friday in the strongest Fair Grounds allowance of the meet.
"The New Orleans Handicap was in our plan," said David Carroll, Connected's trainer. "But it took him longer to come around. We didn't want to force things."
TORONTO, Ontario - Streakin Rob, upset winner of the 1 1/8-mile Coronation Futurity at Woodbine last October, is the 4-1 winter book favorite for the 143rd running of the Queen's Plate.
A total of 181 Canadian-bred 3-year-olds are eligible for the $1 million Queen's Plate, a 1 1/4-mile race to be run at Woodbine on June 23. The winter book, a hypothetical exercise, was compiled by Jennifer Morrison-Learn, Woodbine's oddsmaker.