JAMAICA, N.Y. - In the past two months, trainer Shug McGaughey has retired multiple graded-stakes-winning fillies Country Hideaway, Serra Lake, and Finder's Fee. He expects the void left by their absence to be filled by Atelier.
Already a multiple Grade 3 winner, * seeks her first Grade 2 victory in Friday's $150,000 Top Flight Handicap at Aqueduct. McGaughey will also send out Cat Cay in the one-mile race that drew a field of nine.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Before the three-day, $2.1 million Autumn Turf Festival at Hollywood Park picks up any steam, it starts slowly Friday. Likewise, the main contenders in the Grade 3 Hollywood Turf Express - Swept Overboard and Nuclear Debate - will languish early and fly late.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Wild Current should have no excuses in Friday's sixth race at Woodbine, a $62,500 claimer for 3-year-olds.
Wild Current has a ton of speed to run at in the six-furlong dash, which also has attracted Oye Yoye Yoye, Playing With Fire, Blue Eyed Sheik, My Golden Son, and Colebrook Ruckus. The latter three all do their best running on the front end.
Wild Current, a $200,000 yearling purchase by owner Cam Allard, has won two of nine races this meet. He is trained by Roger Attfield.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Former Portland Meadows champions Chinquapin Charlie and Tomtom Tommalice head an intriguing cast of seven in Friday's $7,500 Thanksgiving Handicap at a mile.
Friday's nine-race card has a special first-post time of 1 p.m.. The Thanksgiving Handicap goes as the eighth race.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The $500,000 Matriarch Stakes on Sunday at Hollywood Park is the final chance for Spook Express to attract support for an Eclipse Award as the nation's outstanding filly and mare on turf.
Spook Express has three stakes wins this year and a second to Banks Hill in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Belmont Park on Oct. 27. Trainer Tom Skiffington has not given up hope that a win Sunday could give Spook Express the Eclipse.
For Skiffington, this is a familiar situation.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Not being the favorite in Friday's $200,000 Miesque Stakes at Hollywood Park may be the best thing that could happen to Film Critic.
In the 11-year history of the one-mile race for 2-year-old fillies, four favorites have succeeded, but none since Antespend in 1995.
The Grade 3 Miesque Stakes can be a difficult race to assess. It brings together fillies from Southern California with relatively unproven turf form against shippers from other parts of the country and European invaders. This year there are fillies that fit all categories.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Earlier this year, Feverish would have been a standout in Friday's $100,000 Cat's Cradle Handicap at Hollywood Park.
But in the last six months, Feverish went on a seven-race losing streak and such fillies as Queenie Belle and Favorite Funtime arose in stature among California-bred fillies and mares.
Those three - Feverish, Queenie Belle and Favorite Funtime - will face five others in the Cat's Cradle, run at 7 1/2 furlongs for statebred fillies and mares.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - You can't say D. Wayne Lukas doesn't give his horses every chance to prove themselves. Gold Dollar, who will challenge heavily favored Repent in the $200,000 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes here on Saturday's closing-day card, is a case in point.
Gold Dollar, an Overbrook Farm homebred by Seattle Slew, probably will be the most experienced starter in the Grade 2 KJC Stakes, having already made seven starts. He has won just once but did finish third in the Kentucky Cup Juvenile and Iroquois Stakes.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Just because Grover "Bud" Delp finally is running a horse at Churchill Downs again doesn't mean he will make a special trip down memory lane to 1979, when the trainer won the Kentucky Derby with the great Spectacular Bid.
Heck, Delp goes bounding down memory lane all the time. "I think about 1979 at least once a day," Delp said with a laugh.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Of the 40 winners trainer Bill Mott has saddled in New York since July 28, 19 have come with 2-year-olds.
Yes, that's Bill Mott as in William I. Mott, best known for training Cigar and turf champions Theatrical and Paradise Creek. Those 19 2-year-old winners have come with 15 different horses.
What's going on here?