LEXINGTON, Ky. – Jockey Luis Saez escaped serious injury after being taken off the track in an ambulance early on Keeneland's Tuesday card.
Kiaran McLaughlin, Saez's agent, posted on social media Thursday evening that Saez "will be sore tomorrow, but nothing [is] broken."
"Luis wants to ride tomorrow. We will see how he is feeling in the morning," McLaughlin continued.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Trainer Mark Casse was looking around for wood to knock on in the Keeneland winner’s circle after La Cara won the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes Monday to move on to the Kentucky Oaks. The win came a little more than a week after the Casse-trained Sandman won the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby to punch his ticket to the Kentucky Derby.
“The Arkansas Derby last week, the Ashland this week – pinch me,” Casse said. “I never take anything for granted. I love it, and this has been my life. It’s just great.”
Undefeated Eclipse Award champion Immersive, who was given time off due to bone bruising, recently returned to trainer Brad Cox's barn at Churchill Downs.
Immersive last raced while winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies in November, capping an undefeated championship campaign in which she won three Grade 1 races. In early January, owner-breeder Godolphin announced that the filly had been sidelined.
Average daily handle on Santa Anita’s races rose 6 percent at the 49-day winter-spring meeting from Dec. 26 through Sunday compared to the corresponding season last year, according to figures compiled by Daily Racing Form.
The track ran 478 races during the meeting, compared to 417 at the 2023-2024 winter-spring meeting. There were three more days of racing this year than last year, largely because of less rain on racing days this year.
Book’em Danno, who made a successful 4-year-old debut winning an overnight handicap at Colonial Downs on March 14, is being pointed toward the Grade 1, $1 million Churchill Downs, a seven-furlong race on the Kentucky Derby undercard.
“The timing is good after his race which, even though it was only a three-horse field, he ran a big number and I didn’t want to run him back quick,” trainer Derek Ryan said Monday. “This is [seven] weeks, he’s run well fresh, the distance is good, and the prize money isn’t bad.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – When Hit Show turned for home with a decent position this past Saturday in the Dubai World Cup, his trainer, Brad Cox, was watching from Kentucky. Good, Cox thought, the horse will grind his way to a rich placing.
Hit Show, previously only a Grade 2 winner, did more than that, hitting a gear Cox didn’t know he had to run down Mixto and win the $12 million World Cup.
“He’s never run like that before,” Cox said Sunday at Keeneland.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Carl Spackler’s reappearance Friday at Keeneland in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile marks the first salvo in what could be a barrage of Chad Brown-trained graded stakes runners this spring in Kentucky.
If the opening week was any indication, the battle for top jockey honors during the spring-summer meet should be a good one. Three riders – Paco Lopez, perennial leader Edgard Zayas, and Miguel Vasquez – are currently deadlocked atop the standings with six wins apiece over the first four days of the session, with Leonel Reyes right behind with five victories.
While the Triple Crown is rapidly approaching, first-time starter Goal Oriented won a maiden race for sprinters on Sunday at Santa Anita to suggest he can be an important 3-year-old later this year.
Ridden by Juan Hernandez for trainer Bob Baffert, Goal Oriented closed from sixth in a field of seven to win a six-furlong race by 3 1/4 lengths in 1:10.01. Goal Oriented earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 91.
A win by Raging Torrent in Saturday’s Group 2 Godolphin Mile in Dubai and a surprise second by Mixto in the $12 million Dubai World Cup later that evening gave California trainer Doug O’Neill the most lucrative payday of his 30-year training career.
Raging Torrent, a 7-2 chance in American pools, won the $1 million Godolphin Mile by 3 1/2 lengths, which was worth $580,000 for owners Zhang Yueshang and Great Friends Stable.
“He ran lights out,” O’Neill said.
