HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Wildcat Red is back on a regular training schedule but still has a long way to go before he makes it back to the races. Wildcat Red hasn’t raced since suffering a hind-end injury following his fifth-place finish in the Sunshine Millions Classic in January.
Last year, Wildcat Red won the Grade 3 Hutcheson and Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and was the runner-up in the Grade 1 Florida Derby.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – With a little luck, trainer Bill Kaplan will have two of his top horses back in action this weekend.
Kaplan is targeting allowance races in the condition book on Sunday for East Hall and My Point Exactly. East Hall has been idle since finishing a distant fourth behind Commissioner in the Grade 3 Skip Away here March 28, while My Point Exactly exits a third-place finish in an overnight stakes April 25.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Medal Count, third in the Belmont Stakes last spring, is now being trained by Al Stall Jr., who hopes to have the 4-year-old colt back in action before the Churchill spring meet ends June 27.
Owned by Spendthrift Farm, Medal Count has been sidelined since finishing last in the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic last September at Belmont Park for his former trainer, Dale Romans.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ian Wilkes is zeroing in on the June 13 Stephen Foster undercard with at least a couple of his horses – Tiz Windy for the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis and Island Town for the Grade 3 Matt Winn.
Tiz Windy was a good fourth in the Grade 1 La Troienne on the Kentucky Oaks undercard, and Island Town was up in the last jumps to win a first-level optional claimer on the Kentucky Derby undercard.
Wilkes said he is unsure of the next start for Gorgeous Bird, who has resumed a steady work pattern since finishing sixth in the April 4 Blue Grass.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Roger Brueggemann is like everybody else who has trained in Chicago for many years: He wishes the purses were better than they are.
But Brueggemann, a regular on the Chicago circuit since he began training in 1991, is different from most: He has shifted his summer base of operations elsewhere for the first time, with most of his 50-horse stable split between Indiana Grand in suburban Indianapolis and the Trackside training center near Churchill Downs.
As of Tuesday morning, Steve Krebs had won nine races from 57 starters since taking over trainer Scott Lake’s horses April 16.
Lake is serving a 120-day suspension for two positive tests at Laurel Park in December for the anabolic steroid stanozolol.
Lake was suspended 60 days for each offense. The penalties are running concurrently because he was not notified about the first positive until the second had been detected. Lake was suspended an additional 60 days because he had another stanozolol positive at Penn National last June.
Monmouth Park had a successful opening weekend, which started of with thick fog early in the opening-day card Saturday that made it difficult to view the races.
Saturday’s attendance was 11,138, a 9.5 percent increase over the 10,168 fans who turned out on opening day a year ago. All-sources handle Saturday was $3,776,955, a decrease of 6.2 percent from 2014. The ontrack handle of $655,007 was up 12.3 percent from a year ago.
Juan Carlos Guerrero has been reinstated as a trainer at Parx Racing and last Tuesday won his first race at the track since Dec. 26, 2011.
Guerrero, the leading trainer by wins at Parx in 2011, was banned from the track for 10 years after he allegedly inappropriately touched a female employee of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association at Parx on Nov. 16, 2011.
Guerrero raced his horses in New York in 2012 before his wife, Lisa, became the trainer of record in early 2013 and they resumed racing at Parx. Guerrero assisted his wife at the barn each day.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Imperative, second in the $1.45 million Charles Town Classic in his most recent start April 18, is being rested on a local farm and will be trained by Richard Baltas when he resumes racetrack activity in the coming weeks, owner Kenji Morinaga said.
Morinaga said Baltas will replace George Papaprodromou as trainer. Papaprodromou claimed Imperative for Morinaga for $50,000 in December 2013. In 2014, Imperative had one win in 11 starts – the Charles Town Classic – and earned $1,265,700. Imperative is winless in three starts this year, earning $304,250.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Bolo, who finished 12th in the Kentucky Derby on May 2, has resumed training in Southern California for a potential start in the $1.25 million Belmont Derby at Belmont Park on July 4.
Trainer Carla Gaines said it is unlikely that Bolo will have a prep race before the Grade 1 Belmont Derby, which is run at 1 1/4 miles on turf.
