Grant Jack has made his way to Oaklawn following a win in last Saturday night’s $250,000 Springboard Mile at Remington Park and is to begin his 3-year-old season in the Arkansas track’s $100,000 Smarty Jones on Jan. 17.
“That will be his spot,” said Bret Calhoun, who trains Grant Jack for Wayne Sanders and Larry Hirsch.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Two months ago, Comma to the Top was believed to be best as a sprinter. It was the right assessment at the time, but it needed revision. Comma to the Top has developed into a successful router and taken an important role in major two-turn races at the end of his 2-year-old season.
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Uncle Mo, the early favorite for the 2011 Kentucky Derby, arrived at the Palm Meadows training facility in Boynton Beach, Fla., shortly after noon on Wednesday to begin preparations for his 3-year-old campaign.
The Santa Anita Derby has been enriched from $750,000 to $1 million for next year’s running on April 9, part of an enhancement to the purse structure of Santa Anita’s prep races to the Triple Crown, the track announced Tuesday.
The boosting of the Santa Anita Derby is part of a $450,000 stimulus package to Santa Anita’s stakes races for 3-year-olds at the upcoming winter-spring meet, which opens Dec. 26. The track also has boosted the purses of two Santa Anita Derby prep races – the Robert Lewis and the San Felipe – from $150,000 to $250,000.
Betting on the Kentucky Derby and the 13-race Derby card at Churchill Downs rebounded on Saturday after three years of declines, according to figures released by Churchill, despite heavy pre-race rains, a bet-processing malfunction, and the lack of any standout favorite in the 20-horse field.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - On Sunday morning, trainer Todd Pletcher made the same walk from his barn to the Churchill Downs Backside Media Center that he had made exactly one week earlier. Only this time, the feeling was completely different.
On April 25, a dejected Pletcher held a morning press conference to announce that the early favorite for the Kentucky Derby, Eskendereya, would have to miss the race due to an injury to his left foreleg.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Hattiesburg has never known anything quite like it, unless you count their favorite son playing in Super Bowls and such. So when Ike and Dawn Thrash and their ample brood from a southern Mississippi town of some 45,000 send out a colt named Line of David under their royal blue silks Saturday in the 136th Kentucky Derby, it will be a special day indeed.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. The plan to run the filly Devil May Care in Saturday s 136th Kentucky Derby may have been finalized Monday, but its origins date back to last summer.
On the morning of Aug. 16 at Saratoga, the then-unraced Devil May Care worked five furlongs in 59.65 seconds out of the gate at Saratoga. It was the fastest of 40 works recorded that morning.
She galloped out as strongly as any 2-year-old I ve ever had, Todd Pletcher, the trainer of Devil May Care, said this week. At that point, I said, Wow, this is a very talented filly.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The field in the Santa Anita Derby hit the far turn, and there came Garrett Gomez and favored Lookin At Lucky creeping up along the fence. Lookin At Lucky was the race favorite, the horse with a target affixed. His run was clean till midway around the turn, where Victor Espinoza on Who's Up dropped over toward the rail. Garrett Gomez found himself in trouble.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Ahmed Zayat was home in New Jersey when he heard the news about the ankle injury suffered by Endorsement on Wednesday morning that prevented that horse from being entered in Saturday's Kentucky Derby.
"It's heart-wrenching, you lose your horse hours before the draw," Zayat said by phone. "It's really sad."
