At Del Mar, it's surf and turf. At Hollywood, it's turkey and turf.
Hollywood Park will once again celebrate the Thanksgiving Day holiday with its Turf Festival, carding six graded grass stakes worth a total of $2.1 million over the three days following Thanksgiving during this year's fall meet. Hollywood is scheduled to open on Nov. 7 and run through Dec. 17.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - White Cloud, who just missed in a similar spot, has a slight edge over six foes in a $34,000 allowance at 1 1/16 miles on the grass at Bay Meadows Sunday.
All seven entrants have a reasonable chance to win this second-level allowance race, but they have to beat White Cloud. Trained by Allen Severinsen, White Cloud's rally fell a neck short as the 6-5 favorite here Aug. 15.
That was his third start following a five-month layoff, so the 5-year-old White Cloud is sharp and fresh.
Devout Sinner, who finished fourth in last month's Grade 3, $300,000 Oklahoma Derby, gets back to racing with fillies, and on turf, Sunday in the $30,000 Remington Park Oaks. The one-mile race has drawn 10, including The Hess Express, a Kentucky invader who was third in last month's Audubon Oaks at Ellis Park.
COLUMBUS, Neb. - The Nebraska Breeders' Sweepstakes, a pair of $15,000 races for 2-year-olds going six furlongs - one for colts and geldings and the other for fillies - highlight Sunday's card at Columbus.
C. C. Diamond and Mr Clearwater top a field of six in the Juvenile for colts and geldings.
Trainer Cole Norman, who has won five of the last nine stakes carded at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., will be odds-on to add to that total Sunday when he sends out the well-regarded Dancing Dreams in the $40,000 Delta Miss Stakes. The six-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies has drawn seven, and should produce starters for the $75,000 Princess Futurity on Sept. 30.
AUBURN, Wash. - Hastings Park star I'm Free will bring his show to Auburn for Sunday's nine-furlong, $125,000 Emerald Breeders' Cup Derby, and if it plays as well here as it did in Vancouver, fans will be in for a treat.
I'm Free, a gelded son of Free at Last who races for Beverly Green and trainer Henry Miller Jr., has been sensational at Hastings this season, winning five stakes, including his last four starts.
"He has exceeded all my expectations," said Miller. "And I've always liked him."
The takeout rate at Keeneland's fall meet this year will be reduced to 16 percent for all wagers, racing officials said Friday.
The cut will make exotic and superexotic bets at Keeneland the cheapest in the country. Takeout on those bets, which include exactas, daily doubles, trifectas, pick threes and superfectas, was previously 19 percent. Nick Nicholson, the president of Keeneland, said in a release that the track was influenced by the decision this summer by the New York Racing Association to reduce the takeout on most bets.
ELMONT, N.Y. - E Dubai, runner-up to Point Given in last month's Travers Stakes at Saratoga, is being pointed to the Grade 1 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs on Sept. 23, his connections said Thursday.
The Super Derby, a $500,000 race run at 1 1/4 miles, is the last Grade 1 of the year run strictly for 3-year-olds.
"It's a Grade 1 race, it looks like he'll have a pretty good chance in there,' said Tom Albertrani, an assistant to Godolphin's head trainer, Saeed bin Suroor. "The other option would be the Jockey Club Gold Cup, where he'd have to run against older horses."
