ELMONT, N.Y. - Handicappers can sharpen their skills for Saturday's World Thoroughbred Championships by tackling a stakes-filled Friday card at Belmont Park, which includes the $150,000 Knickerbocker Handicap, the $150,000 First Flight Handicap, the $100,000 Nashua, and split divisions of the $125,000 Athenia Handicap.
Horsemen flooded the entry box with 22 entries for the Athenia, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares, prompting the racing office to split the race into two divisions.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Rare is the Thoroughbred who can win two stakes to open her career. But when Atlantic Fury goes to the post Thursday in the $100,000 Green River Stakes at Keeneland, she could be a slight favorite to pull off the notable accomplishment.
Atlantic Fury, a Sam-Son Farm homebred trained by Mark Frostad, won the Cup and Saucer Stakes at her home track of Woodbine in her debut. Her chances of a repeat appear solid, since rain has been forecast for Thursday and her lone previous appearance came over a soft turf course.
NEW YORK - Leaders of the New York legislature are close to approving a plan that will allow Aqueduct racetrack to operate video lottery terminals year-round, legislative and racing officials said Tuesday.
There has been an about-face by many legislators who fiercely opposed expanded gambling earlier this summer. With state tax receipts in a freefall as the economy sours, and with the financial burden of the World Trade Center attacks rapidly mounting, opposition to expanded gambling has significantly dampened.
CHICAGO - With a 120-horse stable scattered across the country, half of Steve Asmussen's battle is keeping track of who's who. Well, not really. Asmussen is reputed to have an acute memory - he can rattle off the characteristics of all his own horses, and everyone else's, too.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Flying Alibi should appreciate the drop from allowance to claiming in Thursday's Bay Meadows feature, a mile turf race for $28,000-32,000 claiming fillies and mares.
Flying Alibi has made only four starts this year and is looking for her first victory. In her last race, at Bay Meadows on Sept. 24, she tried the turf for the first time and wound up fourth in an allowance race. She should find Thursday's race a much easier spot.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Handicappers may debate Escape With Me's credentials in the sixth-race feature Thursday at Santa Anita, but two days before the Breeders' Cup, few will dispute her timing.
Sired by 1991 Juvenile winner Arazi, and produced by 1994 Sprint runner-up Soviet Problem, Escape With Me does not need a championship-caliber performance Thursday against seven California-bred fillies and mares in a first-condition, six-furlong allowance. Pedigree aside, Escape With Me ran fast enough in her maiden win Aug. 24 to suggest she fits against winners.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Mysterious Affair dominated the filly-mare sprint ranks here this spring, rattling off four straight wins before going to the sidelines because of injury in mid-June.
Her owner-trainer, Mort Hardy, had hoped to have Mysterious Affair back for a fall campaign, which would have included this Saturday's Ontario Fashion Handicap. But Mysterious Affair, a daughter of Mysterious Vice and Miss Blue Bell, won't race again until next year, when she is 5.
You and You Alone, a strong third in both of his last two tries against much tougher competition, heads a field of seven in Wednesday's feature at Bay Meadows, a second-level allowance at six furlongs.
You and You Alone has made five starts this season and has one win, a second, and two thirds. Trained by Clifford Delima, You and You Alone began his season in April with a strong second behind Flom's Prospector. He came right back in his next start to post a neck decision for his third career victory.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Okay, okay. So they've pretty much blown all their major races. They are down to features that few have heard about and even fewer know about. The Keeneland officials are, for all intents and purposes, playing out the string at what remains of their 17-day fall meet.
But as that old bumper sticker might say, "A bad day at Keeneland is better than a good day almost anywhere else."
ELMONT, N.Y. - Later this week, trainer John Kimmel will try to win his first Breeders' Cup race with Miss Linda in the Distaff and perhaps with Hook and Ladder in the Sprint, if he draws in.
Kimmel could set the tone for a good week with Full Flow in Wednesday's eighth race, a third-level allowance, at Belmont Park.
Eleven colts and geldings entered the 1 1/8-mile inner turf race, including four main-track only horses, Berchtesgaden, Wild Summer, Un Fino Vino, and Tempest Fugit.