OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Hawkish was a strong allowance winner going a mile on turf at Aqueduct on April 15, and trainer Jimmy Toner is eager to see how the 3-year-old son of Artie Schiller will do going longer.
Thus, Toner plans to run Hawkish in the Grade 3, $200,000 Pennine Ridge at 1 1/8 miles at Belmont on June 2.
“I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t stretch out,” Toner said Friday at Belmont. “I’d like to find out, anyway. He was just awesome last week. He’s a good horse.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The veteran New York-bred gelding Kharafa will make his 9-year-old debut in the $125,000 Elusive Quality Stakes next Saturday at Belmont Park, trainer Tim Hills said.
It will be the third straight year that Kharafa will begin his campaign in the Elusive Quality. He finished second behind Disco Partner last year and fifth behind A Lot in 2016. Hills said he is using the Elusive Quality as a stepping-stone to the Kingston Stakes for New York-breds on May 28.
Kharafa has won 12 races, including seven stakes, from 45 starts and has earned $1.1 million.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The debut winners Retonova and A True Giant seem to have found a relatively soft spot to make their stakes debuts – and second career starts – in Sunday’s $100,000 Times Square division of the New York Stallion Series on closing-day at Aqueduct.
Retonova, trained by Chris Englehart, broke a step slowly but got a patient ride from Trevor McCarthy and pulled away to win by four lengths at odds of 10-1 on March 17. Englehart said Retonova had shown potential in the morning, but he wasn’t expecting a first-out victory.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Xten, a 3-year-old maiden colt, was euthanized on Friday after being involved in an apparent collision during a workout that led to the cancellation of training on the main track.
Trainer Tim Yakteen said on Friday afternoon that Xten was found to be suffering from neurological issues and could not be saved.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Favorable weather and large fields led to a sharp increase in all-sources handle at California’s racetracks in the first three months of the year.
Handle for the year surpassed $764 million through March, a gain of 11.85 percent from the corresponding period in 2017 for Thoroughbred meetings at Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields, the nighttime harness meeting at Sacramento, and the nighttime mixed meeting at Los Alamitos, according to figures released at Thursday’s California Horse Racing Board meeting.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Giant Expectations, a winner of two graded stakes in the last year, has been taken out of training for the spring with soundness issues in his hind end.
Trainer Peter Eurton said on Friday that Giant Expectations will miss five or six weeks of training. The setback will prevent Giant Expectations from starting in two leading races for older horses on dirt at Santa Anita – the Grade 2 Californian Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on April 28 and the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita on May 26.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – With one Kentucky Derby win already in his pocket, Vinnie Viola will be playing with house money when he returns to Churchill Downs in two weeks as the owner, with Mike Repole, of Vino Rosso, one of three leading Derby contenders trainer Todd Pletcher worked at the Palm Beach Downs training center Friday morning.
The decision by Emerald Downs to move opening day back a few weeks and start the meet on a Sunday paid dividends when 78 horses were entered for the 10-race card, which begins at 2 p.m. Pacific. Compare that with 2017, when just 47 horses started on the seven-race opening-day card.
This is the first time Emerald has started its meet on a Sunday, and having just one day to fill instead of the traditional two made life considerably easier for racing secretary Brett Anderson.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – With just one stakes remaining at a dwindling spring meet at Keeneland, three first-level allowances will serve as co-features on a nine-race Sunday card that starts at 1:05 p.m. Eastern.
Each carries a purse of up to $76,000, including Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund bonuses.
Perhaps the deepest of the trio is race 8, a 1 1/2-mile turf race that drew an oversubscribed lineup of older horses. Focus Group, trained by Chad Brown, could come favored when he breaks from post 11 under Jose Ortiz despite having been away nearly six months.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Trainer Ron Moquett lived in such close proximity to Oaklawn Park that he said the roar from a massive crowd “made my water bottle shake like it was Jurassic Park” when Whitmore rallied to win the Grade 3 Count Fleet last Saturday.
“It was surreal,” Moquett said.
