SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer D. Wayne Lukas said that Mr. Z, the winner of the Ohio Derby in June, remains on schedule for the Grade 1 King’s Bishop at Saratoga on Aug. 29.
Lukas said Tuesday that in hindsight, he regretted not entering Mr. Z in last Saturday’s Jim Dandy Stakes, noting that it became a four-horse field when Monmouth Park raised the Haskell Invitational’s purse to $1.75 million and lured Competitive Edge and Upstart.
Trainer David Walters had a nine-race winning streak broken last Saturday when Steel Curtain finished second at Charles Town. It was the first time Walters had been beaten since July 8.
Walters’s streak began July 10. On Saturday, he won the first and third races at Charles Town before Steel Curtain ran in the fourth. During his streak, Walters did run two horses as an entry in a race July 23, with one finishing first and the other fifth.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Dortmund, the Santa Anita Derby winner who has not run since the Preakness, had a minor setback this past week when he was cast in his stall at Del Mar and wound up bruising some ribs, Baffert said.
“We’ll have to wait a week or two, and then he should be all right,” Baffert said.
Baffert said he still is holding out hope that Dortmund could run in the Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 19 at Parx.
DEL MAR, Calif. – American Pharoah got back to his summer home here at Del Mar on Monday night, and on Tuesday morning, Del Mar officials had a lengthy discussion with trainer Bob Baffert regarding their signature race, the $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 22, but American Pharoah will not race here this summer.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Om, the 3-year-old scheduled to start in Sunday’s $150,000 La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar, has been the answer to a racing trivia question for so long that trainer Dan Hendricks has embraced the colt’s quirky identity.
Name the horse who won the maiden race in which American Pharoah made his career debut in August 2014. Om won a maiden race at five furlongs by 7 1/4 lengths, with American Pharoah only fifth.
“It’s fun,” Hendricks said. “I can’t think of many more maiden races that were tougher than that one.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Ninfa del Cielo, a champion and Group 1-winning filly in Venezuela, is looking to make her North American debut this weekend.
Through a translator, trainer Oscar Gonzalez said Tuesday he is hoping a race will fill Saturday or Sunday for Ninfa del Cielo, a winner in eight of 10 starts. The 4-year-old filly will be ridden by Emisael Jaramillo, the all-time winningest jockey in Venezuela.
Jaramillo, 38, began riding here Saturday, winning with one of five mounts.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Stanley Gold intends to run at least eight horses for Jacks or Better Farm on a rich Saturday program at Gulfstream Park, and the results could vary wildly.
“I could have a career day,” Gold said Tuesday while holding one of his top older horses, Grande Shores, just outside of his Barn 11 shed row. “Or I could be looking to climb in a hole I’d never want to come out of.”
C.R. Knight, who trained Thoroughbred stakes winners at Del Mar, Hollywood Park, and Santa Anita in the late 1970s and early 1980s, died last Friday after an illness, the Del Mar publicity department announced on Sunday.
Knight, better known as Chay Knight, was 80. Born in Ventura, Calif., on Aug. 4, 1934, Knight began as a Quarter Horse trainer. He was based at Los Alamitos in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when his stable included Kaweah Bar, the World Champion Running Quarter Horse in 1968 and 1970.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Flavien Prat has been suspended three days, Friday through Sunday, for causing interference that led to the disqualification of his mount in the first race last Friday.
Prat, who turned 23 on Tuesday, was cited for his ride on Minster’sadventure, who finished first but was disqualified and placed second for causing interference in the stretch of a starter allowance at a mile on turf.
