Your browser does not support iframes.
NEW ORLEANS – No one is calling the 3-year-old colt Justin Phillip bipolar, schizophrenic, or anything like that. “Quirky” was the word his trainer, Steve Asmussen, chose to describe him.
“Ninety percent of the time he’s fine,” Asmussen said Thursday morning at Fair Grounds. “The other 10 percent, you just don’t know.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Churchill Downs has set the dates for the three three-day pools in the 2011 Kentucky Derby Future Wager while announcing that exacta wagering will be offered for the first time in the single Kentucky Oaks Future Wager pool.
The dates are Feb. 18-20, March 11-13, and April 1-3.
This is the 13th year for the Future Wager, which has undergone a number of changes through the years. The latest is exactas in the Oaks pool, which will again run concurrently with Derby Pool 2. Exactas were first offered on Derby futures during Pool 2 of 2009.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The 2011 Preakness is still more than four months away, but the MI Developments Preakness 5.5 kicks off here next Sunday with the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes. The Preakness 5.5 is a $5.5 million bonus that will be awarded to the owner and trainer of any 3-year-old who wins a series of races at MID tracks culminating with the Preakness at Pimlico on May 21.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -- While Uncle Mo understandably garners most of the attention when it comes to trainer Todd Pletcher’s band of 3-year-old prospects, there are at least a half-dozen other prominent youngsters of both sexes who could have a major impact in stakes races throughout the course of the winter.
Brethren, Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver’s little brother, is still a few breezes away from his 3-year-old debut.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Uncle Mo is about ready to get back to some serious work.
Uncle Mo, crowned juvenile champion at Monday’s Eclipse Award ceremonies, has been galloping steadily at the Palm Meadows training facility and according to his trainer, Todd Pletcher, is almost up to his first breeze as a 3-year-old.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Most first-level allowance races are ordinary affairs, rarely eliciting more than passing interest other than from handicappers trying to find a winner to bet on. But first-level allowance races for 3-year-olds during the first two months of the Gulfstream Park meet are anything but blase, usually producing one or more contenders for the major Kentucky Derby preps to be decided later in the session.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The 3-year-olds that trainer Donnie Von Hemel put on the track over opening weekend at Oaklawn Park performed like they worked for the postal service. They delivered despite snow, rain, and fog.
Oaklawn Park battled all of those conditions last week, losing Friday’s opening-day program to the lingering effects of a snowstorm, and then having fog settle over the oval for the Monday card.
NEW ORLEANS – The post position draw for the Grade 3, $100,000 Lecomte, the anchor to Fair Grounds’s first big stakes day of the season on Saturday, did not take long. Only five horses were entered in the Lecomte, the first of three graded stakes races for 3-year-olds to be run at this meet.
OZONE PARK, N.Y – Trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. already has a solid group of 3-year-olds stabled at Gulfstream Park. Another one will soon be on the way.
Flashpoint, on the basis of a scintillating 6 1/4-length debut victory at Aqueduct on Saturday, will soon be headed to south Florida, where he will be pointed to the Grade 2, $150,000 Hutcheson Stakes at seven furlongs on Feb. 26.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Tapizar’s win in the Grade 3 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday confirmed trainer Steve Asmussen’s belief that the colt will play an important role in the build-up to the Kentucky Derby.
Tapizar won his stakes debut in the Sham, disputing the pace through the first quarter-mile before taking the lead and winning by 4 1/4 lengths in a quick 1:40.38 for 1 1/16 miles. Tapizar earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 97 in the Sham, which was preceded by an emphatic win by 10 1/2 lengths against maidens at Churchill Downs on Nov. 27.
