Despite two comprehensive losses in recent months, the Northern California stakes winner Chase the Chaos will be sent to Pimlico for the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes on May 20.
Chase the Chaos will be a longshot, which is not an issue for trainer Ed Moger Jr.
“We’re going in with no expectations,” Moger said Sunday. “He’ll be 99-1.”
Churchill Downs begins its post-Kentucky Derby season with an eight-race “Twilight Thursday” card with a first post of 5 p.m.
There are a pair of allowance-level events on the card, including a $127,000 conditioned allowance for 3-year-olds and up going 1 3/16 miles on the main track. Giant Game, who first got notice when third in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for Dale Romans, comes in off back-to-back runner-up efforts at Gulfstream. He is stretching out after both those efforts came at a mile.
Practical Move is recovering from an illness that prevented a start in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday and will be back at trainer Tim Yakteen’s base at Santa Anita as early as the middle of this week.
The winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 8, Practical Move was withdrawn from the Kentucky Derby because of an elevated temperature last Thursday.
Yakteen said that Practical Move’s condition is improving and that the colt will be flown to California as early as Wednesday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Although run on a synthetic track, Turfway Park’s signature Kentucky Derby prep has become an enticing spot for horsemen since Churchill Downs Inc., the parent company for both the Florence, Ky., track and the flagship Louisville location, purchased Turfway in 2019 and increased the qualifying point value of the race to 100 for the winner. Now, the race’s form is holding its own.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Saturday’s undercard stakes at Churchill Downs had major implications to the developing field for the Grade 1, $1 million Metropolitan Handicap on June 10 at Belmont Park – a race that has long been crucial to championship aspirations.
In its last 10 runnings, the race has been won by divisional champions Honor Code (2015 older dirt male), Mitole (2019 male sprinter), and Flightline (2022 Horse of the Year, older dirt male).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – When Matareya earned her first career Grade 1 victory last year in the Acorn Stakes at Belmont Park, her performance was somewhat lost in conversations involving Eclipse Award champion Echo Zulu, who had been a veterinarian scratch on the way to the gate. On Saturday, Matareya won another Grade 1, but there was a lot of chatter about the troubled trip for reigning divisional champion Goodnight Olive in the Derby City Distaff.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The two stakes winners at Santa Anita on Saturday could not have more diverse pedigrees.
One is a filly with world-class bloodlines who won her first stakes in her fifth start. The other is a California-bred gelding bought for a modest sum who has won three stakes in California and throughout the Southwest.
The filly Teena Ella is supposed to be a graded stakes winner, considering she is by War Front and is out of the four-time champion Beholder, who was inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame last year.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It was business as usual at trainer Brendan Walsh's Churchill Downs barn on Saturday morning, with the trainer on horseback accompanying several sets to the track in the early, shortened training hours on Derby Day. But it wasn't quite usual in the shed row, with Pretty Mischievous relaxing in her stall behind her winning blanket of Kentucky Oaks lilies.
"I don't think so, no," Walsh said when asked if the victory, his first in the filly classic, was sinking in yet. "I think it will after the weekend. Pretty surreal."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Forte, the favorite for Saturday’s 149th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, was scratched out of the race by Kentucky state veterinarians Saturday morning due to a minor bruise in his right front foot.
Forte had been dealing with a bruise since mid-week, but did not miss a day of training. On Friday, Forte had galloped with a three-quarter shoe, to, as trainer Todd Pletcher said, relieve pressure from the tender area.
Total betting on the 13-race Kentucky Oaks card at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Friday set a record of $74.9 million, according to Churchill Downs, a slight gain over the record of $74.6 million set last year. Wagering on the Oaks itself, however, was down 7.8 percent.
