DEL MAR, Calif. – Arrogate - the Arrogate who was ranked as the best horse in the world, not the Arrogate who sleepwalked through the San Diego Handicap on July 22 - was back on the track on Tuesday at Del Mar with a sharp half-mile workout that left his trainer, Bob Baffert, both smiling broadly and breathing a sigh of relief.
“He looked good today," Baffert said after Arrogate worked a half-mile in 47.20 seconds under jockey Martin Garcia. "He was floating over the track."
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The 3-year-old male division was turned upside down over the weekend when longshots Girvin and Good Samaritan won two important graded stakes while classic winners Always Dreaming and Cloud Computing and the previously undefeated Timeline faltered.
Wine List will have leading jockey Tyler Gaffalione aboard for the first time when a four-day race week begins at Gulfstream on Thursday with a $43,000 allowance as the highlight of a nine-race card.
Wine List, a 7-year-old gelding with a couple of long layoff lines in his past performances, was one of 12 horses sent to Gulfstream earlier this year by Louisiana-based trainer Ron Faucheux partly because of the suspension of turf racing at Evangeline Downs for the balance of the year. Gaffalione has surged again to his customary spot atop the Gulfstream jockey standings.
A five-week drought between six-figure stakes at Gulfstream Park will come to an end this weekend, but it’s not just the leadoff events in the popular Florida Sire Stakes series that will catch the attention of racing fans.
Gunnevera also will be back in action at the south Florida track as a huge favorite in the $100,000 Tangelo Stakes, adding to the allure of a weekend that also will include the $100,000 Dr. Fager and $100,000 Desert Vixen on Saturday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Arklow, the winner of the Grade 2 American Turf at Churchill Downs in May, tops a field of nine 3-year-olds for Friday’s Grade 2 National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Stakes.
Arklow rallied to a one-length victory over Good Samaritan in the American Turf, a performance obviously flattered on Saturday when Good Samaritan upset the Grade 2 Jim Dandy here. Trained by Brad Cox, Arklow will attempt to rebound from an 11th-place finish in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby. Florent Geroux will be aboard for the first time.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – On Saturday, trainer Todd Pletcher won four races on the Saratoga card, including a maiden special weight race with the 2-year-old colt Mojovation, who scored a front-running victory by two lengths. He covered six furlongs in 1:11.14 and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 86.
“He trained well all summer,” Pletcher said. “It was nice to see him perform up to the way he had been training.”
Mojovation, a son of Quality Road owned by Zayat Stables, likely will make his next start in the Grade 1 Hopeful on Sept. 4.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In between disappointments in Saturday’s Grade 2 Jim Dandy at Saratoga and Sunday’s Grade 1 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park, trainer Chad Brown won eight consecutive races, including seven straight on Sunday.
Brown’s streak started in Saturday’s 11th race at Saratoga, where Durable Goods won a maiden race on turf. Wake Island, also trained by Brown, was second.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Stellar Wind finished second in the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Distaff and fourth last year after stumbling at the start. Her third and final try in the race will be at Del Mar on Nov. 3, a date that trainer John Sadler is constantly reminded is fast approaching.
“They’ve got that countdown sign outside the track,” he said Monday of a sign prominently displayed at the corner of Via de la Valle and Jimmy Durante. “It dropped under 100, now it’s in the 90s. That’s not that far away.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Avenge, third in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, is set to make her second start of the year Saturday in the Grade 2, $200,000 Yellow Ribbon Handicap, a 1 1/16-mile grass race for older females. The field is shaping up as the largest of the four stakes at Del Mar this weekend.
Louisiana Downs will run nothing but stakes races on Saturday. The nine-race program features the $60,000 Prelude, which is a prep for the Super Derby; the annual Louisiana Cup of divisional stakes for Louisiana-breds; and a couple of turf stakes moved north from Evangeline Downs.
Purses for the card total $460,000. The program is the first of two major stakes days at Louisiana Downs, and the races are expected to produce starters for the Super Derby card of stakes Sept. 9. First post Saturday is 3:15 p.m. Central.
