Jockey Gokhan Kocakaya, once a leading rider in Turkey, intends to pursue more mounts in Maryland after notable early success. In his Laurel debut last Friday, Kocakaya won both races in which he rode.
“I found that here, there’s a chance, so I came here,” Kocakaya said. “And I think everything went fine. I think I want to stay here.”
A rematch at Laurel between 3-year-old rivals Barbadian Runner and Pay Billy will likely have to wait. While both horses are nominated to the $100,000 Private Terms Stakes on March 22, trainer Henry Walters does not plan on entering Barbadian Runner.
“After his last race, I gave him a little break, a four-week freshener where he’s going to swim and do a little treadmill work,” Walters said. “He’s coming back to the track at the end of this month. I’m not going to run him in the Private Terms.”
Post Time, runner-up in last year’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, will soon start breezing at the Fair Hill Training Center for trainer Brittany Russell. The 5-year-old is not being pointed toward any races yet, but he should begin his campaign this summer.
“We’re just letting him come along and when he’s ready, he’ll tell us,” Russell said. “When we get him back on the work tab, we’ll make a plan from there.”
Pima County in Southern Arizona has reissued a request for proposals to select an operator for the racetrack at Tucson's Rillito Park after a previous bidding process fell apart, according to the county.
The RFP seeks an operator for racing meets beginning in 2026. Rillito last ran a live race meet in 2023. The 2024 race meet was canceled after the previous leaseholder, Rillito Racing Inc., let its lease expire without addressing concerns from the county about a lack of financial audits and required maintenance at the track.
Muhimma, a fading third as the 4-5 favorite Feb. 23 in the Honeybee Stakes at Oaklawn, has taken up training at Fair Grounds and starts next April 4 in the Ashland Stakes at Keeneland, trainer Brad Cox said.
Muhimma started her career with three wins, the last of them Dec. 7 in the Grade 2 Demoiselle, but her Honeybee defeat came with no excuse.
Tom Tomillo, a colorful Chicago claiming trainer who died in 2010, ran a winter New Orleans string between 1990 and 2008. His horses would roar out of New Orleans every spring and run their best races during March and April at Sportsman’s Park or Hawthorne Racecourse in Chicago. But at Fair Grounds, Tomillo approached auto-toss status, his career record 60 for 1,397, a 4 percent strike rate.
Trainer Paul McGee started racing at Fair Grounds in 2004. One more victory and this will mark his most successful New Orleans winter.
McGee, entering this week’s racing action had eight winners from just 25 runners, equaling his previous Fair Grounds top from 2010-11, when it took 47 runners to hit the total. More recently, McGee had one, two, or three Fair Grounds winners at meets between 2014 and 2023.
ARCADIA, Calif. – As trainer Leonard Powell left the winner’s circle following Air Force Red’s win in Saturday’s Grade 3 San Simeon Stakes at Santa Anita, he turned toward a track executive to announce short-term plans for his 7-year-old veteran.
“He won’t be running next weekend,” Powell said.
Air Force Red had a rare schedule for a modern Thoroughbred in early March, racing on consecutive weekends. He went from a last-place finish in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile on March 1 to a win in the San Simeon Stakes on the hillside turf course, his third career stakes win.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Kazushi Kimura, champion jockey in Canada from 2021-23, intends to resume riding at Santa Anita on March 21, two months after sustaining an injury in a starting gate incident.
Kimura said Sunday that he is planning a career move in coming months and does not plan to return to Woodbine, near Toronto, in advance of that track’s 2025 opening day on April 26.
Kimura recently bought a home near Santa Anita and will remain in Southern California.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After finishing a troubled and very game second behind odds-on favorite Mindframe in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile, Steal Sunshine will accept an invitation to run in the $1 million Godolphin Mile on the Dubai World Cup undercard on April 5 at Meydan. He will be joined on the long journey from South Florida by Super Chow, recent winner of the Gulfstream Park Sprint, who will compete in the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen.
