MUSKEGON, Mich. - Better late than never.
With only three weeks left in the Great Lakes Downs meeting, the long-awaited jockeys' room and grooms' dormitory are ready for occupancy. The $2.4 million project replaced temporary buildings that had been leased for the first three seasons of racing. The backstretch dormitory has 48 double rooms, each with a private bath.
VINTON, La. - Chris Kotulak, last seen and heard at Hollywood Park's fall meeting of 2000, has been named the new announcer at Delta Downs. The track, purchased this spring for approximately $110 million by Boyd Gaming, begins a 120 day meeting on Nov. 17 and is very close to have slot machines up and running.
Kotulak, 39 and a native of Omaha, Neb., began his racing career in his home state before moving to Louisiana Downs in 1994. He called races for six seasons at northern Louisiana racetracks before moving to the West Coast.
Trainer Gary Lee Johnson has accomplished what no trainer has been able to do in 20 years - win a training title from Dale Baird at Mountaineer Park.
Johnson defeated Baird 40-38 at the Mountaineer summer meet, which ended last Saturday.
Baird, the winningest trainer in North American history with 8,569 winners, had not lost a training title at Mountaineer since 1981.
Johnson, a native of Cleveland, has been the winningest trainer at Thistledown the past four seasons and has won 19 straight meeting titles there, including the meet that ended on Monday.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Inish Glora came east from British Columbia last month to try her hand at turf racing.
And while Inish Glora, a 3-year-old filly, got her first taste of Woodbine's E.P. Taylor course in the Sept. 29 Wonder Where Stakes, her trainer, Kathy Bremner, is hoping the rains will stop long enough to allow her filly a second trip over the grass in Friday's feature.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Heliotrope, the reigning champion filly or mare on turf in Canada, lays over a compact field in Friday's Woodbine headliner, a $67,200 classified allowance on the grass.
Four other fillies and mares go in the seven-furlong race - Cozy Up Doc, Signme or Trademe, Ahead by a Century, and Inish Glora. Selene Stakes winner Dark Ending and Greatballsoffire were entered for the main track only.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Gary Stevens is looking to finalize his plans for the Breeders' Cup Classic this week. On Tuesday, his decision may have gotten more difficult.
Stevens was aboard Gander, the Meadowlands Cup winner, Tuesday morning for a five-furlong workout that was timed in 58.90 seconds over Belmont's main track, equaling the fastest of 37 moves at the distance. Although Stevens wasn't available for comment afterward, trainer John Terranova said Stevens "was pretty impressed with him. He said he did everything right and gave him a great feeling."
ARCADIA, Calif. - Given that fast horses are expected to produce fast workouts, form held Tuesday morning at Santa Anita. Officer and Kona Gold led a flurry of workout activity by nine Breeders' Cup candidates training toward the Oct. 27 World Thoroughbred Championships.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Equine melting pot that it is, Keeneland occasionally showcases matchups that horseplayers are unlikely to see anywhere else.
Through the years, there have been all sorts of races that could be classified as East vs. West, or David vs. Goliath, or just about any imaginable theme. With horses shipping in from virtually every corner of North America, the combinations have been boundless.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - The splash owner-trainer Corale "Bunky" Richards made at last weekend's Breeders' Festival at Louisiana Downs was more than two decades in the making. Richards, who won three stakes from five starters in the restricted series of races, made racing Louisiana-breds his focus in 1977 after he won the Crescent City Derby at Fair Grounds with his first racehorse, Orleans Artist.
