The late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel won the Muniz Memorial Classic (when it was called the Explosive Bid Handicap) two years in a row, in 2008 and 2009. Chad Brown, not late, and a sure future Hall of Famer, used to work for Frankel before launching his own impossibly successful training career and will try to do the same thing on March 21 at Fair Grounds.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Joe Talamo vaulted into a tie atop the stakes standings at Oaklawn Park last Saturday when he won both the Honeybee and Hot Springs. He can add to his totals this week, with key mounts in four stakes.
Talamo, 30, rides Remembering Rita in the Temperence Hill on Friday, then on Saturday will be aboard No Parole in the Grade 2 Rebel, Serengeti Empress in the Grade 2 Azeri, and Night Ops in the Essex Handicap.
Trainer Jeremiah Englehart grew up a fan of the New York Giants football team, which won Super Bowls titles following the 1986 and 1990 seasons, when he was 10 and 14 years old. So imagine Englehart’s excitement when he first met the coach of those teams, Bill Parcells, at Saratoga. Then imagine his excitement when Parcells eventually asked him to train horses for him.
“It’s like training for your boyhood idol,” Englehart said Wednesday.
Now imagine Englehart and Parcells teaming to win racing’s Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby. It’s not a far-fetched scenario.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Gamine will head to a stakes race next following her impressive debut win against 3-year-old maiden fillies Saturday at Santa Anita, trainer Bob Baffert said.
Gamine had been all the rage leading up to the race. Santa Anita’s racing office made the race go despite a small field to try and move her along toward grander opportunities after failing to fill the race for its originally scheduled day in the condition book six days earlier.
Where and when that next race will be won’t be determined quite yet.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Starship Jubilee will attempt to stay unbeaten on the year when she races next in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley on the Keeneland turf.
Trainer Kevin Attard said Starship Jubilee, back at her Gulfstream base, exited her victory last Saturday in the Grade 2 Hillsborough at Tampa in good order and will take on the best in the filly-mare turf division in the April 11 Jenny Wiley going 1 1/16 miles.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Now that Eddie Kenneally is on a roll, why stop now?
Kenneally won stakes on both Florida coasts last Saturday – the Florida Oaks at Tampa Bay Downs and the Captiva Island at Gulfstream Park – and he’s liable to tack on another when Lady Kate runs this Saturday in the Hurricane Bertie at Gulfstream.
“Lady Kate definitely likes Gulfstream,” Kenneally said this week from his main winter base at the Palm Meadows training center.
The New York Racing Association will dip its toe in the waters of synthetic surfaces by replacing the current dirt surface of the pony track at Belmont Park with a synthetic one.
The quarter-mile track, located just outside the barn area at Belmont, will this summer be refitted with a synthetic surface, though the exact type of material has not yet been determined. The plan is to have it ready for use this fall, following the Saratoga meet.
With heavy rain forecast for Southern California, Santa Anita has preemptively canceled racing for Friday, March 13.
The track initially announced the cancellation in a tweet on Monday afternoon, noting that weekend racing "will be evaluated later this week and will be dependent on the forecast."
