JAMAICA, N.Y. - After spending the summer and fall beating allowance horses, Summer Colony makes her first foray into stakes competition in Saturday's $100,000 Ladies Handicap at Aqueduct.
The dilemma for handicappers is determining whether Summer Colony was as good as she looked winning four straight races or was she simply beating substandard competition?
"This is one way of finding out," Seth Gregory, the assistant to trainer Mark Hennig, said. "I think she's a graded stakes-caliber filly."
PORTLAND, Ore. - Trainer Lin Melton holds a strong hand in the $37,706 Far West Futurity Finals at Portland Meadows on Saturday, when he saddles the winners of two of the three trial races, which were run on Dec. 9.
Melton will send out Yak Ity Yak Go, who won the first trial by 1 1/2 lengths in 20.78 for the 400 yards, and Fancy a Shag, who scored by a half-length in 20.74 in the third trial.
NEW ORLEANS - All trainer Rickey Harris wanted was for Fan Club's Mister not to draw an outside post in Saturday's $100,000 Woodchopper Handicap. Ouch. Saddled with the outside gate in a 14-horse field, Fan Club's Mister, the 120-pound highweight, will need every bit of his tactical speed - and much racing luck - to overcome a terrible draw.
MIAMI - Nobody would have loved the way the starting lineup for Saturday's $100,000 Pete Axthelm Stakes shapes up more than Axthelm himself. It is a full and evenly matched field of 12 3-year-old colts and geldings going 7 1/2 furlongs on the grass, with the potential for the tote board lighting up like a Christmas tree when the race is official.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Trainer John Kimmel has a way with the Ladies.
On Saturday, when Aqueduct hosts the 131st Ladies Handicap - the oldest stakes in the country run exclusively for fillies and mares - Kimmel will seek his fourth consecutive victory in the race. In 1998, he won it with Unbridled Hope. The last two years, he won it with Strolling Belle, who seeks a three-peat on Saturday.
NEW ORLEANS - More than seven months after finishing ninth in the Kentucky Derby, during which he suffered an injury, Fifty Stars is ready to begin in earnest his preparations for a 2002 racing campaign. Fifty Stars is scheduled to ship into trainer Steve Asmussen's barn on Sunday and is likely to train over the Fair Grounds racetrack Monday. Asmussen said if Fifty Stars's comeback progresses well, he will point the colt to the New Orleans Handicap in March.
MIAMI - After banging heads with each other for most of the year, Castlebrook and Coolbythepool, the leaders of the local filly and mare handicap division, will have a major force to reckon with when Kentucky invader De Bertie joins the party for the inaugural running of the $100,000 Stage Door Betty Handicap Saturday.
Fastest qualifier Chicks Regard will be after his fourth straight win when he starts in Saturday's Grade 3, $149,450 Sunland Fall Futurity at Sunland Park.
Trained by Juan Gonzalez, Chicks Regard will be making his stakes debut after three straight wins against lesser competition.
He started his winning streak by winning his maiden race in his second career start.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Having been ambitiously placed in her last few starts, Lost Expectations seems to have found a softer spot to end a four-race losing streak Friday when she heads a six-horse field going six furlongs in a preliminary allowance race at Aqueduct.
NEW ORLEANS - Trainer Louie Roussel has already entered Kris's Sleigh twice this meet in Fair Grounds turf races, but Kris's Sleigh has yet to leave Roussel's barn in the afternoon. Rained off the grass both times he was supposed to run, Kris's Sleigh tries once more Friday in the Fair Grounds feature.
