JAMAICA, N.Y. - Sunday Break earned a berth in next month's $750,000 Wood Memorial by winning an over five rivals at Aqueduct on Wednesday after an eventful stretch run.
Sunday Break, under Gary Stevens, had a comfortable lead when he ducked in twice in the final furlong of the 1 1/8-mile race. Stevens regained Sunday Break's focus and the colt went on to win the race by one length over Tomahawk Lake. A claim of foul by Tomahawk Lake's rider, Richard Migliore, was not allowed.
Sheri Garcia, the 37-year-old exercise rider who died on Tuesday morning while exercising a horse on the Pimlico training track, wanted to get a jockey's license in order to ride the horse she was working that morning, according to trainers and racing officials in Maryland.
"She wanted to be a jockey," said Georganne Hale, the racing secretary at Pimlico and Laurel. "She told people she wanted that horse to be the first ride she had, in the horse's first race."
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Bill Mott, whose arsenal of outstanding turf horses is seemingly endless, has another star on his hands in Orchard Park, who figures to extend his current win streak to four when he faces nine rivals in Friday's $75,000-added Gravelines Stakes. The 1 1/8-mile Gravelines is restricted to 3-year-olds who are registered Florida-breds.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Harlan's Holiday got back to serious business Wednesday for the first time since his victory in the $1 million Florida Derby on March 16, working five furlongs in a slow 1:03.40 seconds at Gulfstream Park. He is scheduled to make his next start in Keeneland's Blue Grass Stakes on April 13, which will be his final Kentucky Derby prep.
With jockey Edgar Prado aboard, Harlan's Holiday was never asked to extend himself in the drill, which was the second-slowest of 11 five-furlong works on Wednesday's tab. He galloped out six furlongs in 1:17.80.
NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Despite being pounded by two severe winter storms this past week, Thistledown will begin its 187-day racing season Friday afternoon. For the first time in eight years, Thistledown will go solo and drop the 7&7 racing format, under which it was part of a single simulcast signal with either Beulah Park or River Downs.
Director of racing Bill Couch says that with the exception of opening day he will card seven races on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and eight races on Saturdays and Sundays. Friday's card has eight races.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - A budding rivalry between Cat Cay and Raging Fever, plus the 2002 debut of Two Item Limit, will make for an interesting Distaff Breeders' Cup at Aqueduct on Saturday.
Cat Cay and Raging Fever have traded wins the last two times they met in Florida stakes.
Adding intrigue to the $150,000 Distaff Breeders' Cup will be Two Item Limit, who finished a good third in the Breeders' Cup Distaff in her last start on Oct. 27 at odds of 32-1.
ALBANY, Calif. - Even before he purchased Bring the Heat, trainer Wesley Ward believed the colt would be a runner.
The 4-year-old Bring the Heat, who has never finished off the board in six starts, goes for his first stakes victory Saturday in the $100,000 Berkeley Handicap at a mile at Golden Gate Fields.
"I'm very excited about his chances," said Ward, who first noticed Bring the Heat when the horse was working at Santa Anita in preparation for a sale in Florida.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Mayakovsky breezed five furlongs in 58.60 seconds on Wednesday at Santa Anita, where he may make his next start.
Trainer Patrick Biancone said Mayakovsky is being considered for the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 6 as well as the $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct a week later. In his only start of the year, Mayakovsky won the Gotham Stakes over a mile around one turn at Aqueduct on March 17.
"I was not expecting him to recover so fast, put his weight back on as fast," Biancone said. "It's a possibility we'll stay here."
Kama Shootin will try for his eighth straight victory and fourth consecutive stakes win when he starts in the Grade 3, $30,000 Special Hank Handicap over 870 yards at The Downs at Albuquerque on opening day, Friday.
The 48-day mixed meet runs through June 17, on a Friday-through-Monday schedule.
"We're starting with about $90,000 a day in purses, which is about the same as we ended with last year," said Roddy Taylor, the track's racing secretary. "We bumped purses a couple of times last year."
Bobby Barnett, a three-time training champ at Louisiana Downs in the 1990's, will return to the Bossier City, La., track this summer with a string of horses for the first time in two years. Barnett, who will also continue to race in Kentucky, said the improved purse structure at the track is one of the reasons for his return.
This year, purses during the summer meet at Louisiana Downs have been boosted 40 percent to $200,000 a day. The meet starts June 28.