HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. –Trainer Nick Zito always says “you’ve got to play the cards that are dealt you” when it comes to the Kentucky Derby – even if the cards say the best play would be the unorthodox one of running his top Derby prospect Dialed In against older horses in Sunday’s fourth race at Gulfstream Park.
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. − Though no horse entered in Saturday’s $250,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct is any more accomplished than his, trainer Graham Motion believes he will learn a lot more about Toby’s Corner when he runs against eight opponents in the Grade 3 stakes for 3-year-olds.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The $60,000 Mountain Valley for 3-year-olds at six furlongs at Oaklawn Park on Saturday is expected to be a springboard to longer distances for undefeated stakes winners Glint and Smoke It Right. But that is not the case for Trubs, who has been there, done that.
“Right now, we’re going to keep him around one turn,” said Al Stall Jr., who trains Trubs for Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider.
Mr. Commons ran himself into the Santa Anita Derby picture with a good allowance win Feb. 28. The pace of the mile race was slow (47.02 seconds for a half-mile), which subsequently led to a slow final time (1:34.84). As a result, the number was soft - 89 Beyer.
Shug McGaughey has run an odds-on favorite in the Kentucky Derby, runner-up Easy Goer in 1989, so he has no delusions about how a colt named Admiral Perry matches up with the top 3-year-olds of 2011.
McGaughey went out of his way this week to put Admiral Perry on a northbound van from his Florida base for Turfway Park, where on Saturday night the dark bay colt will be one of the favorites in the $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial Stakes.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – That huge sigh of relief coming from Palm Meadows early Thursday afternoon wasn’t from a consignor who’d just peddled one of his 2-year-olds at the Fasig-Tipton sale. It came from trainer Nick Zito after learning his top Kentucky Derby contender Dialed In would get the all-important prep race he’d been looking for Sunday at Gulfstream Park.
Kentucky Derby prospects are like bacon. You can never have too much.
Ramon Dominguez rode J P’s Gusto to a second-place finish in the Southwest Stakes two weeks ago, rode Gourmet Dinner to a second-place finish in the Fountain of Youth Stakes last week, is on Stay Thirsty in the Gotham Stakes on Saturday at Aqueduct, and is scheduled to ride Brethren in the Tampa Bay Derby next weekend. That gives him four potential prospects to weed through over the next two months, but with no guarantee that any of them will pan out.
Take one horse-crazy kid from Beverly Hills, throw him in the deep fryer with one of America’s glamour stables, simmer 20 years, shave head, and voila! – out pops the top money-winning trainer at the 2010 Hollywood Park fall meet, complete with a budding star poised to swing for the big money as a 3-year-old of 2011.
Piece of cake, right? Is this an easy game or what? But then, it hasn’t been quite that simple for Peter Miller, the trainer of Hollywood Futurity winner Comma to the Top for movie moguls Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, and Kevin Tsujihara.
Fusa Code, who won his maiden in the $100,000 Borderland Derby last weekend at Sunland Park, is being considered for a start in the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby, said his trainer, Steve Asmussen. The 1 1/8-mile race is March 27.
Fusa Code came into the Borderland off a third-place finish in a maiden special weight route at Santa Anita on Feb. 3. The horse has since returned to Southern California and Asmussen said if he is doing as well as he was up to the Borderland that the Sunland Derby will become an option for Fusa Code.
