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ARCADIA, Calif. – He has yet to run around two turns, or in a graded stakes race. He also has yet to lose. It’s gut-check time on Saturday at Santa Anita for Bench Points, who puts his perfect record on the line when he meets such marquee 3-year-olds as Comma to the Top and Jaycito in a compelling edition of the Grade 2, $250,000 San Felipe Stakes.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. − A race that wasn’t even on the schedule when the meeting opened will have the eyes of the racing world riveted on Gulfstream Park shortly before 4:30 p.m. Saturday, when reigning juvenile champion and Kentucky Derby favorite Uncle Mo makes his 3-year-old debut in the $100,000 Timely Writer.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Rules were made to be broken, and when it comes to the Kentucky Derby, they have been shattered into tiny shards in recent years.
A horse had not won the Derby off a layoff of at least five weeks for more than 50 years, that is until Barbaro did it in 2006, followed two years later by Big Brown.
Big Brown took down another supposed rule, becoming the first horse in nine decades to win the Derby with a mere three starts. So much for experience.
The woman who owns Anthony’s Cross is a lot of things. She’s a fashion designer, a mother, and a self-described positive thinker. She’s also a de Kwiatkowski, the daughter of one of Thoroughbred racing’s most colorful and successful owners, the late Henryk de Kwiatkowski, and his first wife, the late Minerva Stud Farm owner Lynne de Kwiatkowski Russo. Arianne de Kwiatkowski, 44, said she honors her family history in the sport, but she is also determined to make her own way in the sport with A D K Racing.
A majority interest in Silver Medallion, the El Camino Real Derby winner, was sold Thursday to Blackrock Racing Partners, a partnership headed by oil entrepreneur Steve Marshall, according to both Marshall and Michael Ryan, who previously owned 100 percent of the colt.
“I’ve sold a little over 50 percent,” Ryan, a bloodstock agent based in Kentucky, said from Ocala, Fla., where he is attending a 2-year-old sale. “The horse will remain with Steve Asmussen.”
Rogue Romance, the third-place finisher in last month’s Risen Star Stakes, has a heel bruise that will keep him out of the Grade 2, $1 million Louisiana Derby on March 26, his connections announced on Thursday.
According to trainer Ken McPeek, the injury should not impact Rogue Romance’s ability to make the Kentucky Derby on May 7. Options for his next race now include the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby and the Grade 1, $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes, both April 16.
Patrick Valenzuela is the first to admit the balance is out of whack. Of his 39 wins at the winter-spring meeting through Sunday, only three have come in stakes.
The 39 wins are enough to give Valenzuela, 48, a secure position in third place in the standings behind Rafael Bejarano and Joel Rosario, who are tied with 63 wins and have won 12 and nine stakes, respectively, at the meeting.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – As expected, reigning juvenile champion and current Kentucky Derby favorite Uncle Mo will kick off his 3-year-old campaign going one mile Saturday in Gulfstream Park’s $100,000 Timely Writer.
