Golden Gate Fields has made big changes to its winter-spring meet stakes schedule, adding a wrinkle to the El Camino Real Derby and scheduling six stakes for one card.
The Grade 3 San Francisco Mile is the top race among the six stakes on Saturday, April 27. The purse for the Mile was increased $50,000, and its date was pushed back one month from last year’s March running.
Keros, a half-brother to Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Blame, romped by 10 lengths Saturday night in a six-furlong maiden race.
Keros, a 4-year-old son of First Samurai, was making his third start and his first since being gelded. He is based at the Skylight training center with Tom Drury.
Keros is owned by his breeders, Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, who campaigned Blame, best known for dealing Zenyatta her only career defeat in their epic clash in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic. Blame, by Arch, has become an established sire at Claiborne.
As well as Luan Machado did in Brazil, it still would have been very difficult for the 24-year-old jockey to break into a top winter circuit in the United States. So there’s a method to the madness that has Machado riding at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky.
“He and I agreed that this would be the right time and place for him,” said his agent, Jimmy McNerney.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Spiced Perfection and Just Grazed Me were first and second in the Betty Grable Stakes for California-bred fillies and mares at Del Mar on Nov. 11. They might meet again in a more difficult setting – the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.
Spiced Perfection won the Betty Grable Stakes by 2 1/4 lengths over Just Grazed Me, who returned to win an optional claimer at six furlongs by four lengths at Los Alamitos last Friday under jockey Tyler Baze.
CYPRESS, Calif. – From 2-year-old colts to established 4-year-olds, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer has runners in several stakes at Los Alamitos and Santa Anita for the remainder of the month.
On Sunday, closing day for the Los Alamitos winter meeting, Hollendorfer will start Galilean in the $100,000 King Glorious Stakes for California-bred 2-year-olds at a mile. Owned by West Point Thoroughbreds, Denise Barker, and William Sandbrook, Galilean was second in the Golden State Juvenile at seven furlongs, finishing a neck behind Cruel Intention after disputing the pace throughout.
Accelerate, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, has started a series of workouts in preparation for his final career start in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26.
At Santa Anita on Saturday, Accelerate worked a half-mile in 49 seconds under Juan Leyva, an exercise rider and assistant trainer to John Sadler.
“It was just the first work to get started,” Sadler said Sunday. “Juan thought his energy was good.”
CYPRESS, Calif. - Trainer Bob Baffert’s already deep team of juveniles showed its remarkable strength at Los Alamitos on Saturday when Improbable won the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity and Chasing Yesterday won the Grade 1 Starlet Stakes.
They join Game Winner, who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs on Nov. 2, as Grade 1 winners for the Hall of Fame stable this year.
Longtime Chicago-circuit trainer Mike Reavis won his 2,000th race Saturday with a pair of victories at Hawthorne Race Course.
Saint Alexius won the opener to give Reavis win 1,999, and McKinli’sbabyblues came right back in race 2 for the milestone score.
Carlos Marquez Jr., Reavis’s first-call rider for several years now, was aboard both horses.
Axelrod, a two-time Grade 3 winner in the summer who was ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, is on schedule for a start in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at seven furlongs for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.
“He’s training forwardly,” trainer Michael McCarthy said earlier this week. “He came out of his Breeders’ Cup in good shape.”
Axelrod was beaten eight lengths by winner Accelerate in the BC Classic at 1 1/4 miles, racing as close as fourth on the final turn.
Vasilika, whose eight-race winning streak ended with a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar on Dec. 1, could have her first start of 2019 in the Grade 3 Megahertz Stakes at Santa Anita on Jan. 21.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Friday that the $100,000 Megahertz at a mile on turf for fillies and mares is appealing because of the distance.
“We might look at that,” he said.
