Despite missing a workout last weekend because of inclement weather, Straight No Chaser, the champion sprinter of 2024, is on schedule for a start in the Group 2 Riyadh Dirt Sprint in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 22.
Straight No Chaser was galloped at Santa Anita on Wednesday, according to trainer Dan Blacker, who said the 6-year-old will have two additional workouts at Santa Anita on upcoming weekend before being flown to Saudi Arabia on Feb. 11.
The Delaware Handicap will be shortened to 1 1/8 miles this year and run in September instead of July, Delaware Park announced on Tuesday.
The $400,000 race, which is open to fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up, was recently downgraded from a Grade 2 race to a Grade 3. Traditionally, the race has served as a mid-summer testing ground for high-class fillies and mares bound for Grade 1 races in the fall, but its new date of Sept. 28 will now place it as a potential prep for the Breeders’ Cup.
Hypnus, whose debut maiden route victory Jan. 18 produced a meaningfully higher Beyer Speed Figure (85) than the Lecomte Stakes the same day, will likely start Feb. 15 in the Risen Star, according to trainer Kenny McPeek. He said Hypnus exited his maiden win in good order and would probably work this weekend.
After Her Laugh turned in an especially encouraging workout on Jan. 19 at Fair Grounds, the filly’s trainer, Whit Beckman, leaned toward shipping the 3-year-old to Oaklawn Park, where she was entered in the Martha Washington Stakes. Instead, Her Laugh stayed home this past weekend, breezing five furlongs in 1:02 on Sunday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Mario Gutierrez took off his lone mount at Santa Anita on Sunday, a day after he was involved in a one-horse spill in the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes.
Gutierrez is booked to ride one race at Santa Anita on Friday, the track’s next day of racing.
Gutierrez was unseated when Dont Fight the Fed sustained a fatal breakdown on the turn. Gutierrez was taken to a local hospital for observation on Saturday before being released, according to his agent, Mike Ciani.
“He’s a little sore,” Ciani said on Sunday morning. “We were very lucky.”
California trainer Doug O’Neill spent last weekend in Saudi Arabia, where he watched his three-time stakes winner E J Won the Cup finish fourth in a prep race for the $20 million Saudi Cup in that country on Feb. 22.
While away, O’Neill’s stable had a banner weekend, recording its third and fourth stakes wins of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting with Katonah in Saturday’s Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes for older horses and Vlahos in Sunday’s $92,000 Clocker’s Corner Stakes for sprinters.
Treaty of Rome, beaten a neck by Guns Loaded in the one-mile Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream on Jan. 4, was not entered for Saturday’s Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream. Instead, he will be pointed to the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa on Feb. 8, trainer Chad Brown said Sunday.
Though Brown also mentioned the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds on Feb. 15 as a possibility for Treaty of Rome, he said he is leaning toward the Sam Davis.
Saturday’s graded stakes for older horses at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita are missing a star from the autumn in the Grade 1 winner Subsanador.
Sidelined in October by an ankle injury, Subsanador missed the $7 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar in November and is currently undergoing rehabilitation at a farm in Hemet, Calif., with the hope of a springtime return, trainer Richard Mandella said.
“He’s four months from racing,” said Mandella, who added that Subsanador is being exercised on a water treadmill.
Since the beginning of this decade, there have been 13 instances in which jockeys have won five or more Thoroughbred races at Del Mar, Los Alamitos, or Santa Anita.
Juan Hernandez has accounted for four of those milestones, including a five-win day at Santa Anita on Thursday.
Hernandez, 32, won the third race before prevailing in four consecutive races from the fifth through eighth. He previously had a five-win day at Del Mar on Dec. 1 and rode five winners at Santa Anita on Jan. 4.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Fluffy Socks, the five-time stakes winner and $1.3 million earner, will scratch from Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf at Gulfstream Park due to an injury and will be retired, owner Sol Kumin said Friday.
Fluffy Socks was the 5-1 third choice on the morning line.
Kumin, who bred and owned this horse under Head of Plains Partners, said that trainer Chad Brown informed him Thursday that Fluffy Socks was off in her left hind leg. X-rays showed a faint line which could lead to a condylar fracture.
