OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Rob Atras will take two shots at winning a second Bernardini Stakes on Saturday.
Last year, Atras won the inaugural running of the Bernardini with Royal Albert Hall. Wednesday, he entered both Dynamax Prime and Heavy Roller as part of a nine-horse field in the Bernardini. The Bernardini is unusual in that it is run at 1 5/16 miles.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Ollie’s Candy, the 2019 Grade 1 winner who was fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff in November, is nearing a return to racing in the Grade 1 Beholder Mile on March 14 at Santa Anita.
Monday, Ollie’s Candy worked six furlongs in a quick 1:12.40, the fastest of nine recorded works at the distance.
“We’re a week ahead of schedule,” trainer John Sadler said. “We didn’t get any rain in February. She looks good.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Lake Avenue, the dominant four-length winner of the Grade 2 Demoiselle on Dec. 7, will make her 3-year-old debut in the $250,000 Busher Invitational Stakes on March 7 at Aqueduct. She is expected to face Maedean, who finished second to Lake Avenue in the Demoiselle after dominating the Tempted Stakes.
Lake Avenue, a daughter of Tapit trained by Bill Mott for Godolphin Racing, preceded her Demoiselle victory with a 12 3/4-length maiden score against just three rivals in a seven-furlong race on Nov. 14 at Aqueduct.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jose Ortiz has been fitted with a splint for his fractured right wrist and said he expects to miss at least four weeks of riding.
Ortiz, the 2017 Eclipse Award winner for top jockey, suffered the injury in a post-parade accident Saturday at Gulfstream. He had been scheduled to ride this weekend in Saudi Arabia, but according to a Tuesday post on his Twitter account, Ortiz won’t be able to ride at least until late March or early April, when the Keeneland spring meet gets under way.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Maxfield isn’t the only promising 3-year-old in the Brendan Walsh barn whose return to action has been highly anticipated.
Vitalogy, unraced since finishing a fast-closing second in the Grade 3 Bourbon Stakes last October at Keeneland, will make his seasonal debut Saturday at Gulfstream in the Grade 3, $150,000 Palm Beach Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile turf race on the Fountain of Youth undercard. Javier Castellano has the mount on the British-bred colt by No Nay Never.
Sir Rick is being pointed for the Grade 3, $700,000 Sunland Park Derby on March 22, trainer Robertino Diodoro said on Monday. The horse will enter the mile and an eighth race off a win in the $100,000 Mine That Bird Derby, the local prep which was run Sunday.
The Sunland Derby offers Kentucky Derby qualifying points on a scale of 50-20-10-5.
Delta Downs announcer Don Stevens grew up in several states because of his father’s position with the Federal Aviation Administration. The most influential of them all might have been Washington.
Stevens has long been a diehard fan of the Seattle Seahawks. But the connection goes much deeper.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Jimmy Jerkens revealed Tuesday afternoon that his Kentucky Derby hopeful Green Light Go will not run in Saturday’s Grade 2 Fountain of Youth as originally planned after spiking a temperature on Monday night.
A large paddock-adjacent tent erected over a decade ago at Saratoga Race Course will be removed for this year’s live racing meet beginning in July, the operator of the track, the New York Racing Association, announced on Tuesday.
