Grade 2, $350,000 Holy Bull Stakes, 1 1/16 miles, Gulfstream, Feb. 3, 2018
(10 Derby qualifying points for a win, 4 for second, 2 for third, 1 for fourth)
Winner: Audible, by Into Mischief
Trainer: Todd Pletcher
Jockey: Javier Castellano
Owner: WinStar Farm LLC, China Horse Club International Ltd., and SF Racing LLC
Beyer Speed Figure: 99
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jockey Joe Bravo said Avery Island is a physically talented colt who still has more to learn. Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said he may give Avery Island two more starts to get the education necessary for the Kentucky Derby.
Avery Island made a successful 3-year-old debut Saturday at Aqueduct, winning the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes by two lengths over multiple stakes winner Firenze Fire. McLaughlin said Sunday morning that Avery Island came out of the race in good shape and would return to the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida on Tuesday.
Grade 3, $245,000 Withers Stakes, 1 1/8 miles, Aqueduct, Feb. 3, 2018
(10 Derby qualifying points for a win, 4 for second, 2 for third, 1 for fourth)
Winner: Avery Island, by Street Sense
Trainer: Kiaran McLaughlin
Jockey: Joe Bravo
Owner: Godolphin Stable
Beyer Speed Figure: 87
Grade 3, $151,380 Robert B. Lewis Stakes, 1 1/16 miles, Santa Anita, Feb. 3, 2018
(10 Derby qualifying points for a win, 4 for second, 2 for third, 1 for fourth)
Winner: Lombo, by Graydar
Trainer: Mike Pender
Jockey: Flavien Prat
Owner: Michael V. Lombardi
Beyer Speed Figure: 86
Welcome to the first Saturday in February. Let the madness begin. For the next four months, true believers in the racing game will spend most of their time worshipping at the altar of the Triple Crown. All roads lead to Louisville, where a garland of roses and a white puff of smoke will announce the chosen one, then it will be on to Baltimore for validation. Beyond that, the faithful can only hope for a pilgrimage to New York, and the chance for another Triple Crown winner to save the sport anew.
Led by the likes of Eclipse Award winner Good Magic, fellow Eclipse finalists Bolt d’Oro and Solomini, and the unbeaten McKinzie, a total of 360 3-year-olds were announced on Thursday as early nominees to this year’s Triple Crown.
That number is a decline from last year, when 419 were nominated at the early stage, but is similar to the 368 nominated at this stage in 2016. There were 429 nominated at the early stage in 2015. The record is 450 in 2007, which followed a huge foal crop of 37,948 in 2004. The 2015 foal crop is estimated at 22,500.
ARCADIA, Calif. – For nearly two years, from late 2014 through the summer of 2016, trainer Keith Desormeaux enjoyed the finest stretch of his career, winning four Grade 1, seven-figure races.
The stable had one of the most prominent 3-year-olds of 2016 in Exaggerator, who won the $1,000,690 Santa Anita Derby, $1.5 million Preakness, and $1,015,000 Haskell Invitational. Two years earlier, Texas Red won the $1.84 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.
“That was a nice run,” Desormeaux reflected recently. “I hope it’s not the end. I’m optimistic.”
The unbeaten 3-year-old colt Mask, considered a top prospect for the Kentucky Derby, has had a setback “that will require him to miss approximately two weeks of training,” trainer Chad Brown said Tuesday.
Brown said the timing of the setback, details of which he did not want to disclose, would keep Mask out of his next scheduled start, the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds on Feb. 17.
Bolt d’Oro, the losing favorite in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and Good Magic, the winner of that race, have been assigned highweight of 126 pounds in the The Jockey Club’s Annual Top 2-Year-Old Rankings for 2017.
The ranking, which would be more familiar to racing fans as the Experimental Free Handicap, is an annual assessment of the previous year’s top colts and fillies, using an assigned handicap weight for a theoretical race at 1 1/16 miles on the dirt. In previous years, 126 pounds has been considered the standard for the highest assignment for a colt.
