John Panagot, racing manager for owner Robert LaPenta, has taken on a second job – as agent for four-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Javier Castellano.
Castellano retained the services of Panagot over the weekend after parting ways with Mike Lakow, who had been his agent since September 2016.
Through Sunday, Castellano had 79 wins from 367 starts in 2018. He ranks 14th in wins and fifth in purse money won with $7.4 million.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Catholic Boy, who bled while fourth in the Grade 1 Florida Derby on March 31, could make his return to the races in the Grade 3, $200,000 Pennine Ridge Stakes on turf at Belmont Park on June 2, according to John Panagot, racing manager for part-owner Robert LaPenta.
Catholic Boy made his first three starts on turf, winning two, including the With Anticipation Stakes at Saratoga. He finished a troubled fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Good Magic, the Kentucky Derby runner-up, came out of his fourth-place finish in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday in good order and will be freshened for a summer campaign that will likely begin in late July.
Trainer Chad Brown had said after the Derby that he did not feel the 1 1/2-mile distance of the Belmont Stakes was going to suit Good Magic.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Todd Pletcher has won two of the last five Belmont Stakes and he is a head and a nose shy of having won four of the last five.
On June 9, when the unbeaten Justify attempts to become Thoroughbred racing’s 13th Triple Crown winner in the 150th Belmont Stakes, Pletcher will once again be a participant in the race. How many runners he has, however, will depend upon decisions that will be forthcoming from his owners.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Grade 1 winner Mubtaahij, who in his last start was third in the Dubai World Cup, drew the rail in a field of five for the Lone Star Park Handicap. The Grade 3, $200,000 race will be run on Sunday.
Mike Smith has the mount on Mubtaahij for trainer Bob Baffert, the same team that won last year’s Lone Star Park Handicap with Danzing Candy and Saturday’s Preakness with Justify.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Jockey Ricardo Santana Jr., a Churchill Downs-based rider who won five stakes races over Preakness weekend at Pimlico, on Sunday began serving a seven-day suspension for a riding infraction at Lone Star Park. It runs through Saturday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Over the past four years, trainer Larry Jones would only stick around Churchill Downs in the spring through Derby week – perhaps winning a Kentucky Oaks along the way – before heading east with his stable to Delaware Park.
This late spring and summer brings change for him. A Hopkinsville, Ky. native, Jones has chosen to stay put in Kentucky, though he has not ruled out shipping to Delaware for races.
Special Blessing has made noise in Louisiana since she topped a 2-year-old in training sale for $110,000 last year in Opelousas, La. She picked up her first stakes at nearby Evangeline Downs earlier this month and on Saturday night will attempt to win another in the track’s Louisiana Legends Soiree.
Monmouth Park will have the first of its five bundled stakes days Saturday. The three-day holiday weekend will also host the popular food truck festival.
The four Saturday stakes will be part of a 50-cent pick five that will offer a unique guarantee: If there is a single winning ticket, that person is guaranteed to receive $150,000 regardless of pool size. The guarantee will also be in place on the other big days of the meet: Father’s Day, June 17; June 30; Haskell Day, July 29; and Sept. 1.
