SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Kathy Ritvo is back at Saratoga again this summer. Unlike the past two seasons, when she was here with the top handicap performer Mucho Macho Man, this time she’s in town with a couple of up-and-coming 3-year-old prospects, Fast Anna and the New York-bred Little Daddy.
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin will have major contenders in two of this weekend’s stakes at Saratoga, sending out Sayaad in Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Fourstardave and Cavorting in Sunday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Adirondack.
Sayaad returned from a nearly nine-month layoff to win the Forbidden Apple Stakes over yielding turf at Belmont on July 4, earning a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 103.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Jockey Brice Blanc, idle for the past week after being involved in an accident on the turf course, was out walking at Del Mar on Tuesday morning and said he was scheduled to visit a doctor on Wednesday in hopes of being cleared to ride.
“Hopefully I’ll be back by the weekend, or sometime next week,” Blanc said. “The first two days after the accident were pretty rough. I was really body sore. I’m feeling better now.”
Toro makes a visit
DEL MAR, Calif. - Trainer Bob Hess Jr. said he’s not going to get overly ambitious just yet with Blue Tone, who returned from a nine-month layoff with a sharp victory in a second-level allowance race on Sunday.
“We don’t want to get in any big hurry with him,” Hess said. “We’ll look for another allowance race or a restricted stakes, whether it’s in three weeks or eight weeks.”
Blue Tone, a 5-year-old gelding by Birdstone, was a powerful allowance winner last summer at Del Mar but had been off since October after suffering a hairline fracture to a hock.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Social Inclusion has been sent to Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., for further evaluation, his new trainer, Chad Brown, said on Tuesday.
Owner Ron Sanchez transferred Social Inclusion from trainer Manny Azpurua to Brown several days after his seventh-place finish in the Grade 1 Haskell.
“Unfortunately this horse didn’t come out of the Haskell as well as we’d have liked,” said Brown. “So I sent the horse to Kentucky to Rood & Riddle on Monday to be examined by Dr. Larry Bramlage sometime next week.”
Gulfstream is hosting the $1.4 million Florida Sire Stakes for the first time this year, and the leadoff races in each division are set for Saturday, with the $100,000 Desert Vixen for fillies and the $100,000 Dr. Fager for colts and geldings.
Sing Praises, a 20-1 winner July 12 of the Birdonthewire Stakes, is among those expected for the Dr. Fager, along with Of Course and Fierce Tide.
DEL MAR, Calif. – After a suspension of grass racing for the past week, Del Mar is scheduled to conduct racing on the turf this weekend when a pair of grass stakes are slated, and trainer Tom Proctor is eager to run in both.
Proctor has three-time stakes winner Enterprising set to go in the Grade 3, $150,000 La Jolla Handicap for 3-year-olds on Saturday, and the filly Wishing Gate in the Grade 2, $250,000 John C. Mabee Stakes for older females on Sunday.
If you hadn’t heard of Antioco Murgia, the Italian jockey who won the fifth race Saturday aboard Kutuzov for trainer Gennadi Dorochenko, well, you might hear more of him in the future.
“He is very honest, hard-working, and tries hard,” said Dorochenko, who has more than 75 horses in training and has been known to give mounts to a wide variety of lesser-known jockeys. “If he keeps winning for me, sure, he will ride more.”
Murgia’s record this year is 12 for 129, with a positive ROI of $2.03.
Michael Ritvo has been around racing his entire life, and he always marveled at the top jockeys, who would win three or four races a day with regularity.
So when the 20-year-old apprentice rider rode four winners Saturday at Gulfstream Park in South Florida, he was thrilled to know the feeling himself.
“It was something. It really was,” said Ritvo, whose first career mount was March 19. “I’d seen those guys do it and could only imagine it myself. It was almost like a dream.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – All-sources handle bounced back from last week but still remains down, while ontrack handle remains flat through the first 16 days, or 40 percent, of the Saratoga meet when compared to last year.
After 16 days, all-sources handle is $218,599,782, down 6.5 percent compared to $233,837,982 through the same period last year. After the first 10 days of the meet, all-sources handle had been down 9.5 percent.