NEW ORLEANS - The second of five older-horse sprints stakes at the Fair Grounds 4 1/2-month meet, the $75,000 F.W. Gaudin Memorial Handicap, is on tap here Sunday. You know the players. Bonapaw, Abajo, Crucible - they've been running here for years, taking advantage of the stakes-rich schedule.
ALBANY, Calif. - Bill Patterson, trainer Chuck Jenda's assistant, likes to joke that Sea to See, Hoovergetthekeys, and Sir Alfred get together for lunch every week.
They know each other well enough. When they meet in Sunday's feature at Golden Gate Fields, it will be the fifth time all three have run in the same race.
Their previous meeting was in the Nov. 4 Bay Meadows Derby when Sir Alfred ran second, Sea to See third, and Hoovergetthekeys sixth.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Hurricane Rylie, who was named horse of the meeting last season at Portland Meadows after posting four impressive stakes scores, will reemerge Sunday when she takes on seven rivals in the $7,500-added City of Roses Handicap at one mile.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Patrick Valenzuela, whose career has been plagued by interruptions caused by substance abuse problems, was granted a one-year conditional jockey's license on Friday with strict requirements for sobriety.
Valenzuela, who won the 1989 Kentucky Derby on Sunday Silence, is expected to resume riding on Dec. 26, the opening day of the Santa Anita meeting. Reached on Friday, Valenzuela said he received a license, but declined further comment.
Most horses have to wait for their retirement to be recognized with a day in their honor. Not Xtra Heat, who will be feted at her Laurel Park home base on Saturday.
*, second in the Breeders' Cup Sprint and a winner of 17 races from 22 starts, will be paraded following the fifth race and then will pose for photographs in the winner's circle.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Summer Colony won her last four starts by a combined margin of 53 3/4 lengths. It looks like the time is right for her to make her stakes debut, and she will do so in next Saturday's $100,000-added Ladies Handicap at Aqueduct.
NEW ORLEANS - Keith Bourgeois, who took out his trainer's license in the early 1980's, has never had a year like this. Nor has Bourgeois had such a good start to a Fair Grounds meet.
Through Thursday, Bourgeois had won seven races from 23 Fair Grounds starts, with two seconds and three thirds. That's a far cry from the last Fair Grounds season, when Bourgeois needed 171 starters to post 14 wins, but his fast start is representative of the way Bourgeois's whole year has gone.
MIAMI - Grey Ballet has earned more money than all but four of the 19 entered in Saturday's $100,000 Frances A. Genter Stakes, but barring a late scratch she will be excluded from the final turf stakes of the meet for 3-year-old fillies.
The Genter is run under allowance conditions. Only 12 fillies can start because of the confines of the turf course, with highweights preferred. Grey Ballet wound up one of 10 horses assigned 118 pounds, and only six of those could start. She was one of the four who did not draw in.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Scott Freeman started training under his own name just this fall, and he saddled his first winner Nov. 10, when Phenomenal Times won at Portland Meadows. Despite those limited credentials, on Sunday Freeman will saddle the possible favorite, Primadonna Poppy, in the $7,500-added City of Roses Handicap.
LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. - The one-year anniversary of Steve Van Bebber's death was Wednesday. His widow, Janet, spent the day taking her 4-year-old daughter, Taylor Anne, to visit Santa Claus at Knott's Berry Farm and training her stable of Quarter Horses.
For years, Steve and Janet Van Bebber were a husband and wife training team that ran one of the most successful Quarter Horse operations on the Texas-Louisiana circuit. In December 2000, Van Bebber committed suicide in a motel room in Brenham, Texas.