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?
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Less than 18 months ago, the future looked very bleak indeed for trainer Scotty McCulloch.
"I was on my death bed," said McCulloch, 47, who had been admitted to the hospital with severe liver problems. "It was June 2 - I remember the date. They told me I wouldn't live to see the next day."
McCulloch, however, was not about to go gentle into that good night.
"I was out in 10 days," he said, "and I was back at work the 11th day."
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Blade Prospector, a very impressive winner over the Golden Gate Fields track last season, heads a strong field there in Friday's $100,000 Forty-Niner Handicap. The 1 1/16-mile contest over the main track drew a field of nine older handicap performers.
Blade Prospector led throughout to defeat Dixie Dot Com in the Berkeley Handicap last season and won twice during the 2000 campaign in only four starts. Thus far this season, Blade Prospector has two victories in eight starts to his credit.
The five remaining spots in the Grade 1, $500,000 Champion of Champions will be determined in the two Grade 3, $20,000 Z. Wayne Griffin Directors Trials held over 400 yards at Los Alamitos on Friday night.
The horses with the five fastest times in the Directors Trials will be eligible to run in the Champion of Champions on Dec. 16, closing night of the 2001 Los Alamitos season.
Five horses have qualified for the Champion of Champions by virtue of wins in selected Grade 1 stakes: A Ransom, Hawkinson, Tailor Fit, Corona Kool, and Marmet.
There's a red-hot battle going on in the trainers' race at Thistledown. Jerry Hollendorfer and Gary Johnson are tightly bunched, and through Monday's card Johnson has a two-winner edge, 17-15.
Hollendorfer shipped in with 35 head and is now down to 16. Twelve have been claimed and the others were sold. Johnson has haltered nine of his horses and Hollendorfer has claimed back two. Johnson has started five of the nine claimed horses and two have won. The two that were claimed back by Hollendorfer did not hit the board while going off as the odds-on choices.
Medium Rare, who has won four of his last six races, should get a perfect stalking trip behind a number of speed horses in the $25,000 Autumn Classic Handicap on Friday at Remington Park in Oklahoma City. Special post for the first race is 2:30 p.m. Central.
Others expected for the six-furlong race for Oklahoma-breds include front-runners Abbi's Choice, who just missed winning an overnight stakes in his last start; and Slewmeister, who worked a bullet five furlongs in 59.69 seconds in preparation for his first start since April 21.