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.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Only four new names are in the lineup of 23 separately listed wagering interests in Pool 2 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager, marking quite possibly the fewest changes since Churchill Downs first began offering parimutuel futures in 1999.
Pool 2, which opens its three-day run Friday at noon Eastern, comes three weeks after Pool 1 was offered Feb. 18-20. Pool 2 coincides with the only futures pool being offered this year on the Kentucky Oaks.
Although Golden Gate Fields is stuck in the middle of a two-month period without stakes racing, the 3-year-old ranks here received a boost from a race halfway across the country. Locally based Positive Response scored a seven-length, wire-to-wire victory in the $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial Stakes at Turfway Park as the 2-1 favorite Saturday.
ARCADIA, Calif - Jaycito will make his 3-year-old debut, and first start for trainer Bob Baffert, in Saturday’s $250,000 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita.
Baffert admits that he has concerns about how Jaycito will behave in the Grade 2 race that is a key prep for the $1 million Santa Anita Derby on April 9.
In the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs last November, Jaycito swerved sharply to the outside on the backstretch and eventually finished seventh, 16 lengths behind race winner Uncle Mo.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – ”What’s Todd going to do?”
That simple question has trainers and owners of a number of 3-year-olds in a state of flux as they ponder the status of trainer Todd Pletcher’s 2-year-old champion, Uncle Mo, and his undefeated stablemate, Sam Davis Stakes winner Brethren, for this Saturday’s Grade 2, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby.
KENTUCKY DERBY NEWS: Track all the 3-year-olds on the Triple Crown trail
