Mocito Rojo made a successful ship from his Delta Downs base in Vinton, La., to Churchill once this fall, winning the Grade 3 Lukas Classic in September. He could make the same journey again next week.
Trainer Shane Wilson said Mocito Rojo is being considered for a start in the Grade 1, $600,000 Clark on Nov. 29. The race will be run over the same 1 1/8-mile distance as the Lukas Classic.
Lebron J made headlines in the spring of 2018, when the Medaglia d’Oro colt brought $1.2 million at auction. He’s scheduled to make his long-awaited debut Wednesday night at an unexpected venue – Remington Park in Oklahoma City.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The top 2-year-old filly in California may have one more start this season after all.
Donna Veloce, runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, worked an easy half-mile early Monday at Santa Anita and is expected to defer a scheduled freshening to run in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Starlet on Dec. 7.
MIAMI – Chance It, the top juvenile based locally this season, will be forced to skip the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill Downs on Nov. 30 after missing a scheduled work here Sunday.
“He coughed a couple of times and came down with a mild temperature last week, and as a result he will not be able to make the Jockey Club,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. reported. “The Springboard Mile at Remington is our next option, but planning for that race could be tricky with the quarantine issue they are currently dealing with at that track.”
MIAMI – Trainer Todd Pletcher was in town this week to inspect the troops he has stabled at his winter home at Palm Beach Downs, where he said he’ll eventually max out his local stable at around 100 horses.
“We’re not full there yet,” said Pletcher. “We still have some horses to run at Aqueduct, but every few days we’re sending more down,” said Pletcher.
MIAMI – Trainer Fausto Gutierrez, who has won the main event on the Clasico Internacional del Caribe program at Gulfstream Park each of the last two years, said he plans to keep a stable of horses in the area to run during the 2019-20 Championship meeting this winter.
Trainer Chad Brown already has set a personal record with 52 graded stakes wins as he marches toward another possible Eclipse Award as champion trainer of 2019. But hey, look, it’s still only mid-November, and Brown has plenty of time to add to that gaudy total.
“We’re not done yet,” Brown said Sunday, asked to name some upcoming graded-stakes starters.
There are many, and they will scatter literally from coast to coast.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The roller-coaster saga of Princess Dorian, which began with her serious leg fracture on Nov. 10 at Del Mar but looked promising in the early days following her surgery on Nov. 11, took a sudden and tragic turn early Monday when she developed acute laminitis in both her hind limbs, necessitating her being humanely euthanized, according to her trainer and co-owner, Andrew Lerner.
“Rough, rough morning,” said Lerner, who on Sunday had won his first Del Mar stakes with Queen Bee to You in the Betty Grable. “We tried the best we could.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Following her fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Canadian Stakes at Woodbine on Sept. 14, Dixie Moon was retired from racing, trainer Catherine Day Phillips said.
Day Phillips said that Dixie Moon, the winner of the 2018 Woodbine Oaks, has been sent to Kentucky and will enter owner Sean and Dorothy Fitzhenry’s broodmare band. She will be bred to Medaglia d’Oro.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Ian Black’s 2019 stakes winners Red Cabernet and Dun Drum will both make one more start before getting a winter break.
Red Cabernet is headed to Sunday’s Grade 2, $175,000 Bessarabian Stakes, while Dun Drum is on track for the $100,000 Sir Barton Stakes on Nov. 30, Black said after they worked at Woodbine on Sunday morning. Red Cabernet covered five furlongs on the main track in 1:01.00, while Dun Drum covered the same distance in 1:02.20.
