Few horses race through their 8-year-old seasons, especially when they start racing at age 2. Fewer still run for the same owner and trainer the entire time. Eighttofasttocatch has done both.
Eighttofasttocatch will make his 49th and final start Saturday at Laurel Park in the $100,000 Jennings Handicap, a Maryland-bred race he has won the past three years and will be favored to win again. A fifth-place finish or better will give him more than $1 million in earnings.
Gulfstream Park Winter (2014-15)
December 6 - March 28
Post Times
12:35 p.m. ET
Handicapping Information
Entries
Results
Track News
Winter Stakes Schedule
Gulfstream Park Track Layout
Any horseplayer knows how hard it is to grind out a profit on short-priced favorites. Your win percentage has to be astronomical for the few misses not to eat away the earnings from regular but limited hits.
So far at this Fair Grounds meet, the jockey-trainer combination of Tom Amoss and James Graham has buried that axiom.
Trainer Mark Casse won the Queen’s Plate Stakes at Woodbine this year with Lexie Lou, who was second to Kentucky Derby winner California Chrome in the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby at Del Mar last Saturday.
Casse may have a prospect for the 2015 Queen’s Plate in Conquest Typhoon, who won his second stakes in the Grade 3 Cecil B. DeMille at Del Mar on Sunday.
“He’s a Canadian-bred,” Casse said. “The Queen’s Plate is something to think about. For now, he’ll stay in California.”
Oscar Party and Yahilwa are likely to give trainer Jim Cassidy two chances for a win in Saturday’s $200,000 Bayakoa Stakes for fillies and mares at Los Alamitos.
On Tuesday, Cassidy said the two stakes winners are expected to run in the Grade 2 Bayakoa at 1 1/16 miles. Oscar Party and Yahilwa are owned by Deron Pearson and ran in stakes in their last starts.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Carlo Vaccarezza said he is considering sending Little Alexis back to Santa Anita to close out her 3-year-old campaign in the Grade 1 La Brea on Dec. 26. Little Alexis finished ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, immediately after which she had a severe reaction at the site of an injection she’d received a day earlier to administer a vitamin jug.
Little Alexis worked for the first time since the Breeders’ Cup on Sunday at Gulfstream Park, going an easy three furlongs in 36.20 seconds.
Pepper Crown’s victory in Sunday’s Grade 3 Berkeley at Golden Gate Fields earned him the nominal title of Northern California’s top handicap runner. Earlier in the year, he won the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile and the Rolling Green.
Owner-breeder-trainer Alex Paszkeicz made out very well, as the 4-year-old Peppered Cat colt earned $272,937 this year, not including California-bred bonuses. Fans of Pepper Crown were rewarded with a $94.20 payout in the Mile, $23.20 in the Rolling Green, and $33.40 in the Berkeley. A $2 parlay on the three stakes would have returned $18,203.
Art Sherman, who based his operation in Northern California for many years, will be honored by Golden Gate Fields and feted by his many friends and fans here Saturday.
Sherman trained California Chrome to victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness this year. The colt might have locked up Eclipse Awards as Horse of the Year and the nation’s top 3-year-old male with his victory last Saturday in the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on turf.
It’s the time of year when soon-to-be 3-year-olds begin to ease their way into the racing spotlight. On Saturday at Golden Gate Fields, 2-year-olds stretch out to a mile in the $75,000 Gold Rush Stakes in preparation for the California Derby and Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby, a race that offers qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby.
