Retama Park near San Antonio and Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico both have significant stakes coming up this week.
Retama on Friday night will run five stakes for Quarter Horses, including one that drew past world champion Jrc Callas First. The track’s card on Saturday night features the $479,196 TQHA Sales Futurity and the $139,300 Retama Park Derby, both for Quarter Horses.
Retama is running a mixed meet this year, and its first races for Thoroughbreds are scheduled for Tuesday, July 31.
DEL MAR, Calif. – With four wins the first week of the meet, including Grade 2 stakes victories with Catalina Cruiser in the San Diego on Saturday and Catapult in the Eddie Read on Sunday, John Sadler moved into third place for career victories among trainers at Del Mar, passing Hall of Famer Ron McAnally.
Sadler, 61, now has 448 victories at this track, surpassing McAnally’s 445. Only Bob Baffert, who won one race opening week and has 481 wins, and the late Mike Mitchell, who had 476, have more wins at Del Mar than Sadler.
Pam Fitzgerald decided on a career path much earlier than most of her classmates in her native Denver, Colo. With the now-defunct Centennial Race Course near her home, it’s no surprise that Fitzgerald has spent her life working at the racetrack.
“My parents bought their first racehorse when I was 6,” she said. “I went to elementary school about a mile from Centennial, and as soon as school got out, I hightailed it to the track. I just loved it.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – With two of the best older runners on the West Coast, trainer John Sadler has a good problem on his hands.
The day after Catalina Cruiser romped in the San Diego on Saturday, Sadler said he was inclined to give the unbeaten colt more time between starts and stick with his original plan to make Accelerate his lone representative in the Aug. 18 Pacific Classic. Both Catalina Cruiser and Accelerate are owned by Kosta and Pete Hronis.
Accelerate worked five furlongs on Sunday morning in 59.60 seconds, which tied for the fastest of 69 works at the distance.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Victor Espinoza, the Hall of Fame jockey who fractured a vertebra in an accident Sunday morning at Del Mar, will miss the remainder of the meeting, his agent, Brian Beach, said Monday afternoon.
Beach said Espinoza would be required to wear a neck brace for the next six weeks, “more to remind him not to turn his head sideways suddenly.” Espinoza is at Scripps La Jolla Hospital, where he is expected to remain for several more days, Beach said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Monomoy Girl put more distance between herself and the rest of the 3-year-old filly division on Sunday with a decisive three-length victory over Midnight Bisou in the Grade 1, $300,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In Lyrical Lady and Nitrous, trainer Steve Asmussen sent out two good-looking maiden-winning 2-year-olds in the first two days of the meet. Both are likely headed to a stakes race later in this Saratoga season.
Lyrical Lady, who won her debut by 5 3/4 lengths on Friday’s opening day card, could wheel back in the Grade 2, $200,000 Adirondack at 6 1/2 furlongs on Aug. 11.
The $1 million Haskell Invitational is known as a race that always gets its horse. Whether it be Nyquist, American Pharoah, Rachel Alexandra, Big Brown, or Curlin, the cream of the 3-year-old crop makes an annual visit to Monmouth Park.
But this year is different. Undefeated Triple Crown winner Justify is on sabbatical, and there really isn’t a suitable replacement. Justify’s trainer – eight-time Haskell winner Bob Baffert – is not even expected to have an entrant.
Every time Jerry Bozzo sends out a winner, he sets a new standard.
Bozzo, who will turn 98 on Oct. 25, won the fifth race Saturday at Gulfstream Park in south Florida with Gusty Wind, once again delighting his many admirers.
In June 2017, Bozzo broke what was believed to be the North American record for oldest winning trainer, held by the late Noble Threewitt, when he won a maiden-claiming race with a filly named Cotton Tooyah. Before that, Bozzo had become the oldest trainer to win a stakes when Flutterby registered three such triumphs in 2015.
DEL MAR, Calif. – In two starts at Del Mar last year Roy H was essentially robbed of a win when he finished a troubled second in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes in July, and ran a career-best race to win the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in November.
A three-time 2017 stakes winner, Roy H won the Eclipse Award as the year’s outstanding sprinter, the first champion for owner Gary Hartunian coming six years after he began actively acquiring Thoroughbreds.
