INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Keeping Happyanunoit in training for another year has turned out to be a brilliant decision.
Making her first start as a 6-year-old, Happyanunoit won the $221,350 Gamely Breeders' Cup Handicap at Hollywood Park on Saturday, her first start since finishing third in the Matriarch Stakes last November.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Jockey Russell Baze, embroiled in a battle for the Bay Meadows riding title with Jason Lumpkins, won five races Friday night to close to within one win, 55-54.
Baze won the second race (Grovecrest, $6.20), the third (Cascadia, $5.80), the fourth (Lovely Deed, $10.60), the fifth (Osho Togo, $7.60), and the eighth (Up the Glitter, $10.60). Lumpkins was blanked.
Baze has won the title at every Bay Meadows and Golden Gate meeting at which he has participated since 1981. He rode in Southern California from 1989-91.
STICKNEY, Ill. - Trainer Wayne Catalano has started only 13 horses at this brief Hawthorne meet, roughly a fifth as many as the most active stables here. But a lack of starters hasn't kept Catalano from assuming a position atop the trainer standings. Through Friday, Catalano had six wins and was tied with J.R. Smith Sr.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The Metropolitan Handicap, arguably the most prestigious mile race run in America, is one of the few prizes that has eluded trainer Shug McGaughey in his distinguished career. And it is one he highly covets.
"Always has been," said McGaughey, who has finished third three times in the Met Mile since 1990. "It's a great race, one that's high up on my list."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Throughout the spring, Irish Prize has been campaigned with Monday's $350,000 Shoemaker Breeders' Cup Mile at Hollywood Park as a goal.
Following a fourth in the San Francisco Mile at Bay Meadows on April 28, his first start since winning the San Gabriel Handicap at Santa Anita in January, Irish Prize won the Grade 3 Fastness Handicap over this course May 13.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Dixie Dot Com can become a millionaire on Lone Star Million Day with a win in the Grade 3 $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap, one of seven stakes worth a cumulative $1 million Monday at Lone Star Park.
The program, which is the richest day of racing in Texas, also features Hallowed Dreams, who will make her first start outside of Louisiana in the $100,000 Valid Expectations Stakes.
Dixie Dot Com will be an odds-on favorite in the Lone Star Park Handicap, a 1 1/16-mile race, because his chief rival, Mr Ross, did not enter Saturday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Open Story took the lead in the desperate final yards of the Three Chimneys Juvenile to salvage a dead heat for the win. Minutes later, trainer Dale Romans was asked when he knew the filly had the race won.
"When I entered her," Romans said slyly.
Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. Romans knew Open Story was fortunate to catch the heavily favored City Street, a colt, on the wire in the Three Chimneys, a high-profile race on the Kentucky Derby undercard. City Street emerged from the race requiring minor surgery.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Of the 15 horses entered in Monday's Grade 3 $150,000 Red Bank Handicap at Monmouth Park, Inkatha holds the edge in experience.
Inkatha, a 7-year-old horse owned by Gene Smith and trained by Bobby Barnett, has raced in the last three runnings of the Red Bank.
He won the 1999 running by a nose over Rob n' Gin, and finished a late-running third last year to Mi Narrow. Now, Inkatha will attempt to join Adam Smith as the only two-time winners of the mile turf race.
ALTOONA, Iowa - Buck's Best returns from a nine-month layoff and heads a field of 10 Iowa-bred 3-year-old fillies in Monday's $60,000-added six-furlong Bob Bryant Stakes at Prairie Meadows.
Buck's Best has not raced since rallying to capture the Iowa Sorority here by 2 1/2 lengths last August for her owner-trainer Doug Anderson. She won two of her four starts to go along with two third-place finishes during her 2-year-old campaign.
