ARCADIA, Calif. - The $150,000 San Gabriel Handicap on Sunday at Santa Anita comes at an ideal time for trainer Bobby Frankel, who is having a career-best year.
Entering the weekend, Frankel had 18 Grade 1 stakes wins and had 49 stakes wins, one shy of his personal best of 50.
In the Grade 2 San Gabriel Handicap, a 1 1/8-mile turf race, Frankel has entered three - El Gran Papa, No Slip*, and Northern Quest* (click here for PP's), all stakes winners in 2001.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Winning Sunday's $75,000-added Alex M. Robb at Aqueduct with Spectacularspencer would be a fitting conclusion to trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. and owner Sanford Goldfarb's terrific year in New York in 2001.
Dutrow and Goldfarb each will win year-end titles for races won in New York this year. And it won't be shocking if Spectacularspencer provides them with their last victory in New York in 2001 when the racing year ends Sunday.
Spectacularspencer will be favored in the Alex M. Robb, a New York-bred handicap at 1 1/16 miles which drew 12 horses.
NEW ORLEANS - Heavy rain early Friday morning in New Orleans tore a hole in the field for the Furl Sail Handicap, and with six of the 14 entrants scratched when the race was moved from turf to dirt, Mimi's Tizzy stole away to an easy lead and won the Furl Sail by four lengths.
Expertly ridden by jockey Kirk Leblanc, who scored his fifth stakes win of this meet, Mimi's Tizzy opened a clear lead on the first turn of the one-mile Furl Sail and ran on a loose rein down the backstretch.
"Everybody took back off me and let me have it my way," Leblanc said.
NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Next year's Grade 2, $300,000 Ohio Derby at Thistledown will be returned to its traditional July spot on the calendar after having been moved to Sept. 29 this year.
"We tried to use it as a prep for the Breeders' Cup, but the numbers didn't add up," said Bill Couch, the track's racing secretary. "In the three years prior years, the Ohio Derby drew 11-horse fields. This year, the field was six."
JAMAICA, N.Y. - The New York Racing Association has raised its reserved seat prices for next year's Belmont Stakes on June 8, as well as its prices for admission, seats, and trackside parking at its 36-day Saratoga meet.
Belmont Stakes reserved seats previously cost $5 and $10 for all seats. The new prices are $5, $10, and $15 for grandstand seating; $15 and $25 for preferred grandstand; and $10, $15, and $25 for clubhouse seats. General and clubhouse admission remained unchanged at $2 and $4.
ALBANY, Calif. - With the final stakes race of 2001, Golden Gate has almost saved the best for last.
Sunday's $55,000 six-furlong Sutter Stakes for 2-year-olds doesn't measure up, of course, to many of 2001's races in terms of purse or prestige. But it is certainly as intriguing a stakes race as any run here this year.
MIAMI - If it wasn't for bad luck trainer Steve Flint would have had no luck at all since shipping to south Florida earlier this month.
Flint's latest misfortune came last week when his handicap star Outofthebox* (click here for PP's) injured himself in his final work for Saturday's $100,000 Fred Hooper Jr. Handicap. The Hooper was to have served as a prep for the Grade 1 Donn Handicap but Flint not only had to hold Outofthebox out of the Hooper as a result of the mishap, he will also have to pass the Donn as well.
No doubt 2001 could have gone better for Kris Prather. Any layperson who suffered torn knee ligaments and a shoulder out of socket probably would have called it a down year, so just imagine the implications for a professional athlete.
But Prather, who on Monday will return to Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., and try to regain her role as the dominant rider, will always remember 2001 for the good it brought her.
"I don't feel unlucky at all," said Prather, 22. "I still feel really blessed to do what I've done."
SUNLAND PARK, N.M. - Trainer William Leach and owner William L. Clifton Jr. hold a strong hand in Sunday's $150,563 Riley Allison Futurity at Sunland Park.
The 6 1/2-furlong race drew a field of 10 2-year-olds, each of whom made the cut in two qualifying races here Dec. 14. Both trials were won convincingly by Leach and Clifton's horses, Engraved and Premeditation. The pair will be coupled in the wagering.