NEW ORLEANS - It was quiet at Fair Grounds on Monday, one of the slow days of the racing week. Owner Merwyn Sher was in town from St. Louis to witness a nerve-racking stunt, the class-dropping free fall trainer Tom Amoss would perform with Causeimadoll, a horse owned by Sher's family partnership, Tom Boy Stable.
NEW ORLEANS - The Tom Amoss barn has been hot enough with stakes horses in stakes races. Imagine how the trainer will do with a stakes horse in an allowance race.
Four days after Amoss swept a pair of weekend stakes at Fair Grounds, *, a graded stakes-winning sprinter this season, pops up in the Thursday feature here.
There are no sprint stakes for older fillies and mares at this meet until Feb. 9, so Fair Grounds has carded a $40,000, six-furlong allowance with conditions suitable to stakes-quality fillies and mares - nonwinners of two races since Oct. 20.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Thursday's six-furlong $54,000 classified allowance at Aqueduct could easily pass for a Grade 3 stakes, and several of these sprinters, notably Fickle Fanny, Poivre, and Celtic Melody, are returning from layoffs and look to be prepping for upcoming handicaps such as the Interborough and/or the Correction. The returnees will need to have their running shoes on due to the presence of Major Wager and Case of the Blues, who are currently sharp as tacks.
As part of a redevelopment plan for the Del Mar Fairgrounds, the property owner has recommended that the racetrack be given a $62.9 million face-lift, according to a report in The San Diego Daily Transcript.
The owner, the 22nd Agricultural Association, released a report on Monday that recommended the entire 350-acre fairgrounds property receive $245 million in improvements. But the report, a wish list of sorts, identifies only $7 million in capital improvement funds that are available for the renovations.
Delta Downs in Vinton, La., had its gaming license reinstated last Friday after the track's new owner, Boyd Gaming, paid former owner Shawn Scott an additional $5.1 million to eliminate future payments due him that could have been interpreted to be based on the performance of the track's yet-to-be-opened slots casino.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The autumn meeting at Hollywood Park concluded on Monday with an increase in attendance and all-sources handle, but a drop in ontrack handle.
The 31-day meeting drew an average crowd of 7,214, a gain of 5 percent. The overall daily average handle of $9,383,251 was an increase of 3 percent from 2000, but the ontrack average fell by 1 percent to $1,674,185. At satellite locations in California, handle grew by 4 percent to $3,739,541.
The overall handle was the second-highest for an autumn meeting that did not include a Breeders' Cup.
Arromanches doesn't draw the crowds that flocked to see Cigar while he was in the midst of his lengthy win streak that ended at 16, a modern-day record. But those in attendance Wednesday at Aqueduct certainly will take notice of Arromanches, an 8-year-old who seeks his ninth consecutive win of the year.
Arromanches runs in the seventh race, a $50,000 claimer. The race is part of the pick six, which has a $36,045 carryover.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Last winter, with the specter of Point Given hanging over him, trainer David Hofmans was looking far and wide for Kentucky Derby prep races for Millennium Wind, who ended up going to Louisiana and Kentucky. This winter, Hofmans plans on staying put in California with *.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Jockey Alex Solis and trainer Bob Baffert won titles at the Hollywood Park autumn meeting, which ended on Monday. Both Solis and Baffert clinched titles over the weekend.
Through Sunday, Solis had 29 winners, six more than Kent Desormeaux. Laffit Pincay Jr., who won three riding titles in Southern California earlier this year, was third with 22 winners.
Pincay, 54, contended for the Hollywood Park title until last week when he was forced to miss three days after losing an appeal of a riding suspension for a disqualification at Del Mar in July.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Jockey Richard Migliore, a longtime leading rider on the New York circuit, hired Drew Mollica as his agent, effective Jan. 1.
Migliore, who has been represented by Mike Sellito for the past 4 1/2 years, said one of the reasons behind the change came as a result of the time Sellito was spending at his Florida home.
Migliore spent the last three winters riding at Gulfstream Park, but decided to stay at Aqueduct this winter so he could be with his wife and four children.
