Trainer John Shirreffs said an inside draw and restrictions on training the day before the Beholder Mile left Hard Not to Love vulnerable in the Grade 1 race, in which she finished second to Ce Ce.
Hard Not to Love does not have a left eye.
“The post hurt her,” Shirreffs said. “She went to the lead, which is disappointing, because that’s not what she does best. She’s better closing.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Junior Alvarado was at Bill Mott’s Belmont Park barn Sunday morning to work a couple of horses for the Hall of Fame trainer when the discussion turned to a different Mott-trained horse whom Alvarado will ride in Saturday’s $1 million Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds.
Alvarado is the regular rider of Modernist, who won a division of the Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds on Feb. 15. Though Modernist won the slower division of the Risen Star, he did it on the front end after dueling with Ny Traffic and then holding Major Fed at bay in the late stages.
Towards the end of the Del Mar summer season last year, trainer Michael McCarthy was struggling through the worst drought of his career since he had gone on his own.
“Just taking my beating like a man,” McCarthy ruefully replied one morning when asked how he was doing.
He finished the season with one win in 44 starts, with just six runners finishing in the money, a far cry from the solid season he had at Del Mar in the summer of 2018, when he went 7 for 36.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – In 2018, trainer Chad Brown won the Grade 1 Cigar Mile with Patternrecognition, a 5-year-old horse who he always held in high regard but who took a while to reach his maximum potential.
Brown hopes he has another version of Patternrecognition in Payne, a 5-year-old son of Paynter and a half-brother to seven-time stakes winner Vertical Oak. Payne won a third-level allowance last Friday at Aqueduct by 9 3/4 lengths.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – For the most part, horsemen seemed pretty content with how racing operations went over the weekend at Aqueduct as racing continued even as the rest of the sports and entertainment world was shutting down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Doug O’Neill trained Goldencents during his racing days, but it is trainer Bret Calhoun playing a big part in making a name for Goldencents as a stallion.
Calhoun has no direct connections to Goldencents, a 10-year-old son of Into Mischief who went to stud at Spendthrift Farms in 2015, yet a pipeline sending offspring of Goldecents into his stable started flowing a couple years ago.
Mike Stidham was in Ocala, Fla., on Monday, inspecting some young horses he will be training in the not-too-distant future prior to attending the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s 2-year-olds in training sale scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Everything else in the world is shut down – except this sale,” Stidham said mid-morning by phone, referring to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. “It’s pretty amazing, actually.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado began the week at Gulfstream just two wins away from tying the legendary Angel Cordero Jr. for eighth place on the all-time wins list of North American riders.
Prado notched career win No. 7,055 when he guided Sally’s Curlin to a last-to-first triumph here Saturday in the Grade 3 Hurricane Bertie. Cordero retired with 7,057 wins.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Brendan Walsh wishes trouble for no one. He’s not that kind of guy.
Still, Walsh couldn’t help but crack a smile when talking about how the chances of Maxfield making the Kentucky Derby field would be helped greatly by what appears to be an imminent postponement of the race.
“Absolutely, I’ve thought about that,” Walsh said. “I think about nothing else.”
:: KENTUCKY DERBY 2020: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more
