PORTLAND, Ore. - The current Portland Meadows meeting, scheduled to run through April 28, will end on Feb. 15 unless the track and the Environmental Protection Agency can reach agreement on two issues involving the track's planned water disposal system. They need to agree on the wording in a consent decree, which among other things would establish a schedule of fines, and the track needs to get the EPA to issue an extension on when the disposal system must begin operation.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Iron Deputy, a back-to-back winner of the Huntington and Count Fleet stakes, will be sidelined for three months with a leg injury, trainer Jimmy Jerkens said Wednesday.
Iron Deputy, a 3-year-old son of Silver Deputy, came out of his win in the $83,300 Count Fleet on Jan. 5, with a small fracture of the cannon bone.
"It's a little fracture in the cannon bone - [down] low," Jerkens said. "It doesn't need surgery, but we have stopped on him for a while. He'll be out about three months."
ARCADIA, Calif. - Cee Dreams, the winner of the California Cup Matron on Nov. 3, underwent surgery on Monday to have 14 screws inserted in her right foreleg following an injury in a workout last Friday.
According to trainer Peter Eurton, Cee Dreams sustained damage to her suspensories and sesamoids. She is based at the San Luis Rey Downs Equine Medical Clinic, he said.
"Our biggest worry now is infection," Eurton said. "She's a good patient.
"She's walking on it. She seems to be able to put weight on it and give the other leg a break."
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Repent, the runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and one of the East Coast's top Kentucky Derby hopefuls, will likely make his 3-year-old debut in the Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds on Feb. 17, trainer Ken McPeek said Wednesday.
"If I had to choose today, I'd say the Risen Star," said McPeek, who trains Repent for Jerry and Feye Bach's Select Stable. "We think his style will really suit that racetrack and I don't have to run him against his stablemate. I'm leaning toward that race."
Harry "Red" Hedeman, longtime clerk of scales on the New Mexico circuit, died Jan. 21 at age 70 of heart failure at his home in Morgan Mill, Texas.
Hedeman had been retired from racing for three years and was scheduled to be buried on Wednesday, Jan. 23. Hedeman's name is also well-known in rodeo circles as one of his sons, Richard, is a world champion bull rider, and another son, Gary, is a rodeo bull-fighter. Hedeman is also survived by a daughter, Jane.
Prairie Meadows, the central Iowa oval, has released the stakes schedule for its upcoming 53-day Thoroughbred meeting.
Twenty-three stakes worth a combined total of more than $2.3 million will be contested at the April 26-July 6 meet, which will once again be highlighted by the Iowa Festival of Racing.
Handicappers should circle Saturday, Jan. 19, as a date when times were slow and speed stopped at Mountaineer Park.
Saturday's deep, tiring surface - labeled good - yielded just one front-running winner, a heavily bet invader from Turfway Park who raced unchallenged for the lead. Times were so slow that Dieago, a six-time winner last season, won a 5 1/2-furlong sprint in 1:10.04. Adjusted for the track variant, Dieago earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 65.
GROVE CITY, Ohio - Track maintenance crews grated the racing surface here during the off days last week and the result was a fair racing surface this weekend at Beulah Park.
The previous weekend, which opened the 69-day winter-spring meeting, the racing surface was very deep and produced slow times and a pronounced wide-rally bias.
Racing is being conducted on a Friday through Sunday basis here in January. Tuesdays will be added to the schedule in February and Thursdays will be added in March. The meet runs through Kentucky Derby Day on May 4.
Confucius Say, who won five races and more than $250,000 as a 3-year-old, has been chosen Horse of the Year for 2001 at Charles Town.
Owned by O'Sullivan Farms and trained by George Yetsook, Confucius Say accumulated more than half his bankroll with a runaway victory in the $250,000 West Virginia Breeders Classic on Oct. 13.