LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With another Triple Crown in the books, the unofficial second half of the racing season will get under way next Saturday night when a pair of Win and You’re In races toward the 2019 Breeders’ Cup are run under the lights at Churchill Downs.
The Stephen Foster and Fleur de Lis – both former handicap races now being run under allowance conditions – are among five graded stakes that will shift attention toward the Nov. 1-2 Breeders’ Cup.
ARCADIA, Calif. – It was only a half-mile workout, but for Game Winner it was significant – he wore blinkers for the first time since last year, and he looked terrific working in company according to trainer Bob Baffert.
Game Winner’s half-mile workout Friday at Santa Anita in 48.40 seconds – he galloped out five furlongs in 1:01 and change – was his first work since he finished sixth across the wire in the Kentucky Derby.
“He looked really good today,” Baffert said. “He was moving really well, like it was nothing for him.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – An unraced 2-year-old that sustained a shoulder injury during a routine gallop Wednesday morning at Santa Anita was later euthanized at Chino Valley Equine Hospital.
Derby River, a colt sired by Violence and trained by Ruben Gomez, was vanned off the Santa Anita main track about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. The colt was transferred later to Chino Valley. Gomez said the colt was euthanized early Thursday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Before he stepped into the national spotlight with Maximum Security, trainer Jason Servis developed two other horses with humble beginnings into Grade 1 winners. While Maximum Security, disqualified from first in the May 4 Kentucky Derby, will be in his Monmouth Park barn Saturday afternoon, Servis will be at Belmont Park to saddle Firenze Fire and World of Trouble in a pair of Grade 1 stakes on the undercard of the Belmont Stakes.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Bill Mott never had won the Kentucky Derby until this year, so it’s not like the Hall of Fame trainer has a point of reference as to what it feels like to cross the wire first instead of getting put up via disqualification. But he instinctively knows it’s different, and he has sensed it in the way people congratulate him for Country House’s success five weeks ago.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Kevin Attard hasn’t had a Queen’s Plate starter in 10 years, but is back on the trail this year with the promising 3-year-old Jammin Still.
Attard’s last Queen’s Plate starter was Bucephalus, who finished 10th in 2009, but Attard almost won with his first Queen’s Plate starter two years earlier. Alezzandro, who was making just his third start in the Queen’s Plate after debuting just six weeks before, finished second to Mike Fox in 2007. He won the Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie in his next start.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Robert Lee Alexander, best known as Spec, died Monday following an illness at age 80. Alexander served a lengthy tenure as the starter at Keeneland.
Tributes have been pouring forth for Alexander, who began his career in racing in the 1950s as an exercise rider before becoming an assistant starter in 1967 on the East Coast. Sometime in the 1980s, he became the head starter at Keeneland, charged with dispatching fields on their way with the press of a button.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hopes were sky-high for My Boy Jack leading into the 2018 Kentucky Derby. After all, the late-running colt was coming off a victory in the Lexington Stakes, and was sent away the 6-1 second choice in the Derby behind the eventual winner and Triple Crown champion, Justify. He was never a serious factor but did close well to finish fifth.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – She only got a 74 Beyer Speed Figure, but the victory last Sunday by With Dignity at Churchill Downs was visually impressive nonetheless.
“We’ve had high hopes for her all along,” said Ian Wilkes, who trains homebred With Dignity for the Whitham Thoroughbreds of Janis Whitham and family. “It’s just taken patience to get her to this point.”
