Leave the Light On, the winner of the Remsen Stakes in his last start, injured a hind ankle in a workout last weekend, needs surgery, and is off the Triple Crown trail, trainer Chad Brown said Thursday.
“He needs a couple of months off,” Brown said from Florida, where Leave the Light On has been training at the Palm Meadows training center. “It’s obviously very disappointing, but the long-term prognosis is good. We’re doing the right thing and stopping now.”
Santa Anita has a strong card Saturday with three graded stakes – the Grade 1, $300,000 Las Virgenes; the Grade 2, $200,000 Arcadia; and the Grade 2, $200,000 Palos Verdes. In Florida, the stakes focus shifts to Tampa Bay Downs, which has the Grade 3, $250,000 Sam F. Davis; the Grade 3, $150,000 Endeavour; and the $100,000 Suncoast.
In one other stakes of note, champion 2-year-old filly Take Charge Brandi makes her 3-year-old debut in Oaklawn’s $100,000 Martha Washington.
Sam F. Davis Stakes
American Pharoah, the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old male of 2014, and Texas Red, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner, were assigned the co-high weight of 126 pounds in the Experimental Free Handicap, a weight-based ranking of the previous year’s 2-year-olds put out annually by The Jockey Club that was released on Thursday.
The Experimental weights are based on a theoretical race at 1 1/16 miles on dirt, the exact conditions of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the FrontRunner Stakes, a race won by American Pharoah. The 126-pound figure is the standard high weight assignment.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Dodging one storm that canceled training here Saturday and avoiding a second storm that will likely cancel training here on Tuesday, El Kabeir managed to get in an important five-furlong workout Sunday morning in preparation for the Grade 3 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 7.
Working shortly after 9:30 a.m. on a freshly harrowed Belmont Park training track that would likely be termed “good,” El Kabeir breezed a solid five furlongs in 1:01.47, getting his final quarter in 23.72 seconds. He galloped out six furlongs in 1:14.86 under exercise rider Simon Harris.
$400,000 Holy Bull Stakes, 1 1/16 miles, Gulfstream Park, Jan. 24, 2015
(10 Derby qualifying points for a win, 4 for second, 2 for third, 1 for fourth)
Winner: Upstart
Trainer: Rick Violette
Jockey: Jose Ortiz
Owner: Ralph Evans
Beyer Speed Figure: 105
I wish all horses ran consistently from race to race, but that is not reality. I have no particular explanation for why Eagle ran so poorly in last Saturday’s Lecomte Stakes other than it is horse racing. He got a 93 Beyer Speed Figure when third in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes but just a 72 when he never ran at all in the Lecomte. International Star won the Lecomte with just an 89, a five-point improvement from his Kentucky Jockey Club performance. War Story continued forward with an 85 in the Lecomte.
Trainer Neil Howard said Eagle had come out of his seventh-place finish in the Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds in apparently good physical condition, to the extent that Howard decided to send Eagle back to the track on Tuesday. Many horses get more than just two walk days in the barn after racing.
“He was getting pretty high on me already,” Howard said.
Howard said he and owner-breeder Will Farish plan to push on to the Risen Star unless Eagle gives Howard cause to think otherwise in coming weeks.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Far Right came through on the rail, as even-money favorite Mr. Z drifted out sharply, to win a harried dash to the wire in the $150,000 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park on Monday. Bayerd nabbed second, finishing 1 3/4 lengths behind Far Right. Mr. Z was another half-length back in third, while Private Prospect finished fourth.
The Smarty Jones was the first stakes in Oaklawn’s four-race series for 3-year-olds that runs through the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 11.
