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.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Eleven weeks after being eased against some of the best fillies and mares in the country, * will return to the races Saturday against decidedly softer competition in the $100,000, Grade 3 Ladies Handicap at Aqueduct.
Before being eased in the Grade 1 Beldame against Exogenous, Flute, and Spain, Irving's Baby was enjoying a solid 4-year-old season, with five stakes wins and a respectable third-place finish in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign Handicap at Saratoga. Her performance in the Beldame could be attributed to fatigue from a grueling campaign.
For Harvey Vanier, the winter routine has pretty much been the same for as long as anyone can remember: Take the best horses to Florida and leave the rest behind in Illinois.
Invariably, many of the horses left behind by Vanier, who has been training since 1942, are homebreds or others without the pedigree or ability to compete against some of North America's best at Gulfstream Park. While Vanier spends most of the winter in Florida, his longtime assistant, Brian Williamson, stays home in Chicago, working quietly behind the scenes at Hawthorne in Stickney, Ill.
NEW ORLEANS - Triple Crown participant * breezed three furlongs at Fair Grounds last Saturday, the colt's first work since returning to training after surgery to remove a bone chip in his leg. Dollar Bill's breeze was a slow one, about 38 seconds, but was merely designed to serve as a stepping-stone for more intense works.