ARCADIA, Calif. – Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita, tracks owned by The Stronach Group, will launch a $5 double linking the final race at both venues on each racing day beginning Feb. 29, the company announced on Saturday.
Known as the Golden Hour Double, the wager will have a reduced 15 percent takeout. Currently, the takeout on daily double bets in California is 20 percent. The Stronach Group is guaranteeing that the Golden Hour Double will have a pool of $50,000.
Jockey Jose Ortiz fractured his right wrist after being unseated by his mount Atone during the post parade prior to Saturday's third race at Gulfstream Park. Ortiz ultimately got back on Atone and rode the 3-year-old first time starter to a sixth-place finish in the maiden special weight event.
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Ortiz took off the remainder of his mounts on the card and went to the hospital where X-rays revealed the extent of his injury.
A 60-day suspension handed to jockey David Cohen last spring at Oaklawn Park for allegedly striking another rider with his crop during the running of a race has been reduced to five days by the Arkansas Racing Commission, an agency official said Saturday.
Cohen had appealed the original suspension to the commission, which made its decision on a 3-1 vote following a two-hour hearing Saturday. Cohen will have 30 days from the time the order is drafted to appeal to the court system if he chooses. The order will be drafted Monday, said Byron Freeland, attorney for the commission.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita announced on Saturday that marketing director Nate Newby has been promoted to senior vice president and assistant general manager and that longtime vice president Amy Zimmerman will have the new title of senior vice president and executive producer.
Shotgun Kowboy, an 8-year-old who established himself as one of the top horses from Oklahoma, has been retired from racing, his breeder, owner and trainer, C.R. Trout, confirmed to Daily Racing Form on Friday.
Oaklawn publicity on Friday reported the retirement due to a fractured sesamoid.
Paul Young, a retired jockey agent who represented a young Mike Smith as well as John Lively, died Tuesday in a Hot Springs, Ark., hospital, according to his wife, Jody Young. He was 87.
Young was a native of Durango, Colo., who was introduced to racing by an uncle at the age of 14, said Jody Young. She said she believed the uncle was a trainer. Paul and Jody Young moved to Hot Springs, Ark., in the early 1970s and Paul Young established himself as a top agent at Oaklawn.
“He trained for a little while,” Jody Young said Friday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Flap Jack, who won the Arlington-Washington Futurity as a maiden last September but has not run since, is scheduled to make his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes on March 7 at Aqueduct, trainer Jack Sisterson said Friday.
Flap Jack, a son of 2013 Preakness winner Oxbow owned by Calumet Farm, was training toward a start in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland last fall, but was not training forwardly out of his last work for the race, so the decision was made to stop on him.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Eight months after winning his career debut at Belmont Park, Took Charge makes his second start in a first-level allowance that goes as the opener on Sunday’s eight-race Aqueduct card.
Took Charge, a son of Take Charge Indy, won a five-furlong maiden race on June 14 at Belmont Park. While he beat only three horses, one was Three Technique, a horse who since has come back to win twice and who most recently was second in the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Romero Maragh understands the value of making a good first impression.
In his first mount since moving his tack to Aqueduct from Gulfstream Park, Maragh won Thursday’s opener aboard 8-1 shot Anydayisherday. It was Maragh’s third victory overall since he returned from a near year layoff after undergoing surgery to fuse four thoracic vertebrae on Jan. 31, 2019.
Maragh, 19, returned to race-riding on Jan. 20 at Gulfstream Park. He went 0 for 31 before recording two wins on Feb. 12. He said he only made the decision to come to New York last week.
ARCADIA, Calif. – After being a complete no-show in the Pegasus World Cup last month, Higher Power has returned to Santa Anita and is back working, though trainer John Sadler is still unsure as to where he’ll turn up next.
Higher Power went five furlongs in 1:02.80 on Friday morning, his second drill since the Pegasus.
Sadler said Higher Power would be nominated to the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 7, run at the same 1 1/4-mile distance as last fall’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, in which Higher Power was third behind Vino Rosso and McKinzie.
