Leading rider Rafael Bejarano took off his mounts on Friday after he was unseated in the gallop-out after Thursday’s first race at Santa Anita.
Bejarano’s mount, Believe Too, collapsed after the finish from the effects of a hot day. Bejarano did not ride the remainder of Thursday’s program, citing shoulder and neck pain. Bejarano had intended to ride on Friday, according to his agent Joe Ferrer. By late morning, plans changed and Bejarano was excused from his mounts for the day.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Wild at Heart’s workout at Santa Anita on Friday went a little better than expected.
Officially, the 3-year-old Wild at Heart worked five furlongs in 58 seconds. Trainer Richard Mandella timed her in 1:11 for six furlongs.
“I might have gotten it wrong,” Mandella said.
It does not appear so.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jorge Navarro said Friday he’s been hired by Drawing Away Stable to work as its primary trainer.
Navarro has approximately 70 horses under his care, including the three-time Grade 1 winner Private Zone. He has won 32 races during the 2014-15 Gulfstream Park championship meet, putting him second behind only perennial leader Todd Pletcher.
“The deal we made is that I will not take any horses Drawing Away currently has with other trainers,” said Navarro. “I will claim or buy new horses and build up the stable in that manner.”
The multiple stakes-winning mare La Tia has been retired and will be bred to Candy Ride, according to the Fair Grounds publicity department.
La Tia, who had been training here, most recently was second in the Buena Vista Stakes last month at Santa Anita. Her biggest win came in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar last fall.
She won 10 times in 24 starts and earned more than $1 million.
Trainer Larry Jones has had two top 3-year-old fillies here this meet in I’m a Chatterbox and Lovely Maria, but when it came down to final preps for the May 1 Kentucky Oaks, he decided to try to divide and conquer.
Jones had I’m a Chatterbox set to start as the favorite Saturday in the Fair Grounds Oaks, while Lovely Maria will await next Saturday’s Grade 1 Ashland Stakes at Keeneland. They ran one-two in the local prep, the Rachel Alexandra.
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – After an emotional couple of months in south Florida, trainer Jimmy Jerkens and his stable of stakes runners are getting ready to head north for the spring.
Jerkens, whose father, the Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens, died March 18, said Friday that his south Florida-based runners are scheduled to head to New York on Wednesday. Included in that group are Travers winner V. E. Day and Wood Memorial winner Wicked Strong as well as Classic Point and House Rules, both of whom won stakes this winter at Gulfstream Park.
NEW ORLEANS – Fair Grounds heads into its closing-day card Sunday in a far-better position than a year ago, when problems with the turf course were among several issues that raised the ire of horsemen.
The turf course had a new drainage system put in during the offseason, and it has performed sensationally, allowing for racing even during a storm Thursday and looking Friday morning like a course that had been raced on for days, not months.
“We wouldn’t have been able to race on this course on Thursday in the past or even today,” trainer Grant Forster said Friday morning.
The inner-track season comes to an end with a rare non-stakes Saturday card at Aqueduct. Wednesday racing returns to the New York calendar next week when the main track opens.
This was supposed to be a dark week in New York when 2015 race dates were originally allocated. The March 26-28 cards were added to make up for some of the winter cancellations.
