Owner-breeder Brereton Jones and trainer Larry Jones have developed some top 3-year-olds together. Next Sunday, they will try to get the consistent and improving Albano a Grade 1 win in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.
Skip to main content
Create Your DRF Account
New to DRF?
Everything you could possibly
need in one place
need in one place
Register
Don't have an account?
Register Here
DEL MAR, Calif. – Thursday’s opening day at Del Mar drew an ontrack crowd of 42,021, a decline of 2.3 percent over the 43,030 that attended the 2013 opening day.
It was the second consecutive year of decline, the first time that has occurred since 1995 and 1996, but the 10th consecutive year of an opening-day crowd of greater than 40,000. The 2012 opening day attracted an all-time record of 47,339.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Friday’s second day of the Del Mar meeting will feature a pick six carryover of $106,931.
A sequence of upset winners on Thursday’s opening day, notably Passing Game ($62.80) in the ninth race, clinched the carryover.
Friday’s pick six covers the third through eighth races on a program that begins at 4 p.m., Pacific.
As of Thursday morning, there were no early scratches for Friday.
There are plenty of horses to study. The pick six races have fields of 12, 9, 8, 10, 9 and 12.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When the connections of Untapable decided to face males in the $1 million Haskell Invitational, My Miss Sophia, runner-up to Untapable in the Kentucky Oaks, figured to inherit the role of favorite for the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks.
Only thing is, My Miss Sophia was not entered Thursday for Sunday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga.
Not surprisingly, none of the four $32,000 Hall of Fame stakes races scheduled at Hastings for Saturday and Sunday filled. With B.C. Cup Day coming up, it was a good idea to try to have races for non-British Columbia-bred stakes horses, but with the condition that seven horses had to be entered to make the race go, they were probably doomed from the start.
Trainer Marty Wolfson says he has no intention of rushing his sensational debut winner Atreides back following his 5 1/4-length debut win last Saturday, for which he earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure. The performance was one of the best turned in by a first-time starter at Gulfstream Park, winter or summer, in quite some time.
In the last three years, trainer Christophe Clement has won at a 24 percent rate (28 for 118) with horses returning from a layoff of 180 days or longer. Da Mi Basia Mille qualifies but would fall under the category of longer. Much longer.
Da Mi Basia Mille, which translates to “Give Me a Thousand Kisses,” makes her first start in 689 days in Saturday’s eighth race at Saratoga, an $85,000 first-level allowance for fillies and mares going a mile on turf.
The Grade 1 winner Centre Court, who finished last as the favorite in last year’s Grade 1 Diana, is back at Saratoga and pointing to the Grade 2, $250,000 Ballston Spa on Aug. 23, trainer Rusty Arnold said.
Centre Court, a six-time graded stakes winner, finished fifth in the Distaff Turf Mile as the 7-5 favorite at Churchill Downs on May 3. According to Arnold, Centre Court lost a shoe in the race “and beat up her foot pretty bad.”
Chris Kay, the New York Racing Association’s president and chief executive, said he is not in any rush to name a replacement for Tom Durkin, NYRA’s illustrious announcer who will retire from his position Aug. 31.
Kay on Wednesday said NYRA is in the middle of the interview process but said he doesn’t plan on having the new hire in place by Sept. 6, the opening day of the Belmont fall meet. Kay said John Imbriale, who calls the Aqueduct winter meet, likely will be the announcer at the start of the Belmont fall meet.