SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – My Miss Aurelia, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2011, will make her return to the races in Monday’s $100,000 Shine Again Stakes at Saratoga. But if her connections thought this would be a spot to ease her back into action after being away from the races for 15 months, they were mistaken.
The seven-furlong race, restricted to fillies who haven’t won a graded race this year, also drew Grade 1 winners Grace Hall and Better Lucky among its six entrants.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. said Thursday he will switch gears with his handicap star Itsmyluckyday and point for the Grade 1 Whitney here Aug. 2 rather than keep him in New Jersey for the Grade 2 Monmouth Cup six days earlier, as originally planned.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Shared Belief, the undefeated champion 2-year-old male of 2013, worked a half-mile in 52.20 seconds at Golden Gate Fields on Thursday.
Shared Belief has won five races, including the $500,500 Los Alamitos Derby on July 5, his 2014 stakes debut. Shared Belief was sidelined earlier this year with foot problems but has won twice since returning to the track.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Iron Fist, purchased for $1.55 million at the Keeneland September yearling sale last year, will make his career debut in Saturday’s first race for 2-year-old maidens over five furlongs.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer described the gray colt by Tapit as a prospect capable of living up to his purchase price. Iron Fist races for Regis Farms and Stonestreet Stable.
“Everything has been good,” Hollendorfer said. “He should be ready to go five furlongs.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – After starts in graded stakes at Santa Anita in April and May, Premier Steps might find the $90,000 Osunitas Stakes at Del Mar on Saturday to be just what she needs to win her first stakes of 2014.
Trained by Tom Proctor, Premier Steps was third in the Grade 3 Wilshire Stakes over a mile April 27 and fifth in the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes over 1 1/8 miles May 26. The Gamely was the longest career race for Premier Steps, who was beaten four lengths by the winner, Miss Serendipity. The Osunitas is run over 1 1/16 miles on turf.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The turf miler No Jet Lag, who made a splashy debut here last summer, worked five furlongs on Polytrack in 1:00 on Wednesday in preparation for his comeback in the $90,000 Wickerr Stakes on July 23.
The time was the best of the morning among 53 works at the distance.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Christophe Clement likes to ship horses to California for stakes races. He’s thinking of staying a little longer this fall.
Clement said he plans on keeping about a dozen horses at Del Mar for its fall meeting, which comes on the heels of the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita and takes up many of the dates formerly held by Hollywood Park, which closed last December.
Trainer Ian Wilkes will put his promising 3-year-old filly Taketheodds right to the acid test here Sunday when she faces Grade 1 opposition for the first time in the Coaching Club American Oaks.
Wilkes said he had already considered running Taketheodds in the 1 1/8-mile Oaks even before the news broke that division leader Untapable would bypass the race in lieu of the Haskell at Monmouth Park one week later.
In less than a year, jockey Taylor Rice went from hanging on to fitting in.
A year ago at this time, Rice still hadn’t ridden in her first race. She spent most of her July afternoons standing alongside the starting gate at Presque Isle Downs, watching how riders and horses behaved and broke from the gate.
