MIAMI - It's usually news when the reigning champ in a Grade 3 race returns to defend his title. But American Halo will be among the outsiders in Saturday's running of the Fred W. Hooper Handicap, although he beat a field that included multiple Grade 1 winner Sir Bear in the 2000 Hooper.
Of course winning at long odds would be nothing new for American Halo, who was 76-1 when he shocked everybody - including trainer Angel Medina - by winning last year's Hooper.
ALBANY, Calif. - California's eight-day break from racing may cost Russell Baze his seventh national riding title, but he has already surpassed the 400-win mark for the ninth time in his career. Winner of the National Turf Writers Association's Isaac Murphy Award for the best winning percentage every year since its inception in 1995, Baze is about to take that honor yet again.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Opening day of the winter meet at Santa Anita always looks good. This year, opening day looks great.
Invigorated from the eight-day break that followed Hollywood Park's fall meet, the Southern California racing circuit kicks back into gear Wednesday with a Santa Anita card of full fields, outstanding racing, and all-around enthusiasm. The Dec. 26 program is the first live card in Southern California since Hollywood ended way back on Dec. 17, and it shows.
MIAMI - Had Sugar N Spice kept a straight path through the stretch, she might have won last year's Chaposa Springs Handicap instead of finishing third, beaten about a length in the Grade 3 dash. On Saturday trainer Barry Croft gives the stretch-running Sugar N Spice another chance to win the $100,000 Chaposa Springs, a seven-furlong race for fillies and mares.
NEW ORLEANS - Lakenheath's connections finally found a spot for the filly to race.
Lakenheath, a 3-year-old filly bred and owned by Jim Tafel and trained by Gene Cilio, has not started since she finished a closing third in the Grade 3 Arlington Matron on Oct. 6. She has been working steadily and has been ready to run for weeks. The problem was finding her a suitable race.
With her stablemate Scoop penciled in for Fair Grounds's upcoming filly-and-mare route stakes, the Truly Bound, Lakenheath was all dressed up with no place to go - until Thursday.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - At some point, perhaps as early as next month, Too Scarlet will be ready to take on open company in a graded stakes. Trainer Kristina Dupps didn't think the appropriate time was Saturday, which explains why she scratched Too Scarlet from the Grade 3 Ladies Handicap at Aqueduct.
Dupps appears to have a found a more reasonable spot for her New York-bred filly Thursday in a third-level allowance race over the inner track that could serve as a prep for the Grade 3, $100,000 Affectionately Handicap on Jan. 12.
ALBANY, Calif. - Horses have always been a big part of Faith Taylor's life. When she's not at the racetrack, where she has worked 28 years, currently as trainer Lloyd Mason's assistant and main exercise rider, Taylor cannot stay away from horses - even bucking broncos.
Taylor rides on the Professional Women's Rodeo Association circuit, where she is a two-time world bareback bronc champion and this year's winner of the bareback competition in the PWRA Finals.
ALBANY, Calif. - For most fans and owners, the fate of retired horses is a low priority. It's a case of out of sight, out of mind.
In northern California, associate steward Pam Berg has made it her business to care. She set up a nonprofit foundation dedicated to the care of injured and retired Thoroughbreds, the Glen Ellen Vocational Academy.
Berg jokes that three people are involved: "Me, myself and I." Berg, 57, cares for 25 horses on a 10-acre farm in Glen Ellen, in rural Sonoma County.
ARCADIA, Calif. - When Siphonic walked into the paddock before the Hollywood Futurity, his trainer, David Hofmans, at first worried that he had gone too easy with the colt. Hofmans had been trying to walk a tightrope between preparing Siphonic properly for a Grade 1 race and allowing the colt room for future progress. He did not want to squeeze Siphonic, but he did not want a fat tub of goo, either.
"I thought he was too fat," Hofmans said. "I was hoping I had him tight enough."
ALBANY, Calif. - An eight-day Christmas break ends Wednesday at Golden Gate Fields with trainers having entered 84 horses to run on a nine-race card.
Two jockey names were missing, leading rider Russell Baze and hot apprentice Kevin Krigger. Baze is taking the day off by choice. Krigger had no choice.
Krigger will begin serving a five-day suspension after being given days for his ride on Admiral's Cap in the first race on Dec. 16.
