Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer might not be holding all the aces for Monday’s $100,000, Grade 3 All American at one mile on the Golden Gate Fields main track, but he has three of them.
Hollendorfer plans to run G. G. Ryder, coming off a victory in the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile on turf; Summer Hit, the winner of the past two All Americans as well as the Grade 3 Berkeley two years ago before it switched places with the All American; and Outside Nashville, 2 for 2 in stakes at Golden Gate.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Commissioner, 2 1/2-length winner of the Grade 3, $300,000 Pimlico Special last Friday, could make his next start in the Grade 2, $500,000 Suburban on July 4, Elliott Walden, president and CEO of WinStar Farm, said Monday.
Commissioner, a son of A.P. Indy owned by WinStar, has now won four races, two at 1 1/8 miles and two at 1 3/16 miles. The Suburban is run at 1 1/4 miles.
Irad Ortiz Jr., the leading rider at the Belmont spring meet, started a seven-day suspension Monday for careless riding during the running of the fifth race here May 13. The suspension was reduced from 10 days for waiving his right of appeal.
In that race, Ortiz was aboard R Y Squadron, the 6-5 favorite, who was on the lead from the outset in an optional-claiming event on turf. In deep stretch, R Y Squadron shifted in, which forced jockey Junior Alvarado to check sharply on Amazing Anne, who finished second.
ELMONT, N.Y. – If Ron Paolucci has his way, American Pharoah won’t be loose on the lead in the June 6 Belmont Stakes like he was in last Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, where American Pharoah splish-splashed his way to a seven-length victory in the Pimlico slop.
While betting on Saturday’s Preakness Stakes did not keep pace with record figures for this year’s Kentucky Derby, the significant decline in wagering may have been more a function of the circumstances surrounding the race then on any drop-off in attention to racing’s biggest events.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Sheer Drama worked five furlongs in 1:00.34 on Monday at Gulfstream Park in preparation for her next start, which is likely to come in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps on the Belmont Stakes undercard June 6.
Sheer Drama broke off at an easy pace, completing her opening furlong in 13.35 seconds, then began to accelerate steadily on her own, completing her final half-mile in 46.99 while never asked to run. She galloped out six furlongs in 1:14.
Pimlico decided not to delay the start of Saturday’s rain-deluged Preakness Stakes because the worst of the storm that hit shortly before the race had already passed the track, according to Sal Sinatra, the track’s general manager.
The gates for the Preakness opened at 6:21, three minutes past the scheduled post time. By that time, rain had been falling at the track for approximately 15 minutes, but the heaviest portion of the storm had migrated to the east, Sinatra said, with no danger remaining for horses and jockeys.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Be Bullish went out a winner.
Be Bullish, the popular 10-year-old stakes-winning New York-bred gelding won a $16,000 claiming race Sunday at Belmont Park by three lengths, his fourth consecutive victory and 19th overall from 87 starts.
He was claimed from David Jacobson and Drawing Away Stable by owner Mike Repole, who said he will retire Be Bullish to Old Friends Cabin Creek in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Si Sage, the winner of the Grade 3 Last Tycoon Stakes on April 25, will not start in the $200,000 Charles Whittingham Stakes at Santa Anita on May 24.
On Sunday, trainer Darrell Vienna said he would prefer to run Si Sage in a race shorter than the Grade 2 Whittingham Stakes, which is run at 1 1/2 miles on turf.
“I don’t think we’ll run there,” Vienna said. “We’re looking around.”
