HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The track and distance are the same but the potential race shape quite different for Irish War Cry, who will look to enhance his brightening Kentucky Derby hopes when he heads the field in the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes for 3-year-olds, the highlight of a blockbuster card on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.
Churchill Downs Inc. would consider installing so-called historical racing machines at its Louisville, Ky., racetrack if a machine could be designed that was “competitive” with the more traditional slot machines offered at casinos in nearby Indiana, the company’s chief operating officer said Wednesday.
Speaking on a conference call to discuss the company’s 2016 financial results, COO Bill Mudd said Churchill was “working toward figuring out if we can make a better product” than the historical-racing machines already in use at three racetracks in Kentucky.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A field of 11 3-year-olds passed the Gulfstream Park entry box Wednesday afternoon for the 71st running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes, which will be run here Saturday as a key stepping-stone toward the 143rd Kentucky Derby.
To note that trainer Mike Maker is running stakes horses most everywhere Saturday would not be an overstatement. Besides starting horses at his principal winter base of Gulfstream Park, he has Keystoneforvictory and High Noon Rider racing in Barbados and five horses entered in Saturday evening’s $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park.
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Chad Brown has won Breeders’ Cup races and trained Eclipse Award winners, he’s won Grade 1 races on both dirt and turf, he got his first Eclipse Award as champion trainer this year, and he’s got a deep, powerful stable that takes up several barns here at the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida.
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Classic Empire, who missed a work when an abscess popped out the heel of his right front hoof days after his third-place finish in the Holy Bull at Gulfstream last month, is back galloping at Palm Meadows. Trainer Mark Casse said he is hoping to breeze Classic Empire “in the next few days,” but first wants the warm weather to dissipate.
“I just don’t think he likes the warmer weather,” Casse said Wednesday. “I think once he gets to Kentucky, he’ll blossom.”
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – The setbacks incurred by both Classic Empire and McCraken in recent weeks here in south Florida give them the opportunity for just one more prep for the May 6 Kentucky Derby, and as of Wednesday, there was a real possibility that both could wind up in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 8.
Irish War Cry
Curlin-Irish Sovereign, by Polish Numbers
(Bred in New Jersey by Isabelle de Tomaso)
Two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, who retired as North America’s leading money winner, was a force at classic distances throughout his racing career, winning the Preakness Stakes, Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Dubai World Cup. His offspring have followed closely in his footsteps.
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – McCraken, the unbeaten colt who ranks as the favorite for the May 6 Kentucky Derby, will miss his next scheduled prep race, the March 11 Tampa Bay Derby, after sustaining what trainer Ian Wilkes described as a “very minor” injury to his left front ankle.
All was fine for McCraken following a Monday breeze at the Palm Meadows training center, but “we noticed he was a little off this morning,” Wilkes said Tuesday.
