Headed by last year’s winner Goldencents, a dozen horses – the maximum number of starters allowed – were pre-entered Monday for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.
While race order is subject to change, the eighth running of the Dirt Mile is slated as the second of four Breeders’ Cup races on Friday, Oct. 31. Post time is scheduled for 3:05 p.m. Pacific.
The $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf looks like a wide-open event, but Sunset Glow deserves to be the favorite in the one-mile race that will have 14 starters.
Trained by Wesley Ward, Sunset Glow was good enough to finish second behind Group 1 winner Cursory Glance in the Grade 3 Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot before returning to the United States where she rattled off consecutive wins in the Grade 2 Sorrento and Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante.
Following her wins at Del Mar, she shipped to Keeneland, where according to Ward she has been training “sensationally.”
The Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf has the potential to be an outstanding betting race after 20 horses of comparable talent were pre-entered Monday. The list includes 12 stakes winners – seven of them in either graded or group events – with eight of the pre-entrants having made their last starts in Europe.
Lou Raffetto, a longtime industry executive who once served as the vice president of racing at Suffolk Downs for nine years, has signed on as a consultant to the New England Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. He will assist the horsemen in their attempt to strike a deal with the owners of Suffolk that would allow live racing to return to the track in 2015.
Raffetto was introduced to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission at a hearing on Tuesday by New England HBPA president Anthony Spadea, who was accompanied by the organization's executive director, Bruce Patten.
Trainer Michael Stidham said Her Emmynency is out of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. According to Stidham, Her Emmynency came down with colitis Sunday evening and is responding well to treatment at Chino Valley Equine Hospital in Chino Hills, Calif.
She was coming off a win in the $100,000 Surfer Girl at Santa Anita in her first start on turf, and looked like a serious contender in the Juvenile Fillies Turf, which like the Surfer Girl will be run at a mile at Santa Anita. The Grade 1, $1 million race for 2-year-old fillies will be run Oct. 31.
Hollywood Extra, a 3-year-old gelding who was part of the 2011 film “War Horse,” will begin his post-acting career in Thursday night’s fifth race at Remington Park in Oklahoma City. He is set to make his debut in a maiden special weight sprint for 3-year-olds and up bred in Oklahoma.
Hollywood Extra was cast as a young “Joey" in 2011 when he was just three weeks old, according to a release from Remington. He had not been named yet, but was given the clever moniker following his movie experience that took him from Oklahoma to Southern California.
Shotgun Kowboy and Pain and Misery were romping winners of 2-year-old stakes in Oklahoma and New Mexico last week, and are now both candidates for some of the Southwest’s most significant races for their division.
Shotgun Kowboy is headed next to the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot on Nov. 22, said his breeder, owner, and trainer, C.R. Trout. The horse improved his record to 2 for 3 when he cruised to a 6 1/2-length victory in the $85,500 Oklahoma Classics Juvenile last Friday night at Remington Park. For the effort, he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 80.
East Hall, the recent Indiana Derby winner headed to the Grade 3, $200,000 Discovery at Aqueduct, is scheduled to fly from his Florida base to New York next Tuesday, Oct. 28, said trainer Bill Kaplan.
Kaplan said Luis Saez has the mount on East Hall, who could be accompanied by Naval Command.
“She’s still possible for the Tempted,” Kaplan said of Naval Command. “She’ll work this coming weekend, and if everything looks great, we’ll probably go.”
The Tempted, a Grade 3, $250,000 race at Aqueduct, is Nov. 2. The Discovery is Nov. 1.
Saturday’s victory in the Miss America Stakes may have been Luscious Lonna’s final race at Golden Gate Fields. Trainer and co-owner Nick Sloan said he does not anticipate running her next year and that he is not interested in the breeding end of the business, so he will probably sell her.
Sloan said he might run her one more time this year, possibly in Southern California.
The 6-year-old mare went gate to wire under Pedro Terrero to defeat Central Heat by three-quarters of a length in the Miss America, a 1 1/16-mile turf race.
