BALTIMORE – Jockey Alberto Delgado has a photo on his cellphone that starkly illustrates the excruciating difference between what might have been and what is.
The photo shows Delgado aboard California Chrome in the Santa Anita starting gate the Friday of Breeders’ Cup weekend in 2013. The colt is nearly upright while jumping at the break, conceding valuable ground to his opposition in the Golden State Juvenile. California Chrome was never a factor thereafter, finishing sixth.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Linda Rice’s purpose for being in Maryland this week is two-fold. The first, naturally, is to run Kid Cruz in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico. The second is to work the sales grounds at nearby Timonium in search of the next big horse.
Rice, 50, has spent a good portion of her adult life at horse auctions, more often than not watching others buy the horses she wanted but could not afford. Over the last few years, Rice has come up with a Plan B: the claim box.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Go Greeley, last year’s Canadian champion 2-year-old, seems cranked up for his second start of the season Saturday at Woodbine in the $150,000 Queenston Stakes, a seven-furlong test for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.
Go Greeley wintered at the Payson Park Training Center in Florida before returning here for the six-furlong Woodstock Stakes, finishing a distant third after tracking a hot pace.
BALTIMORE – Up With the Birds, the 2013 Canadian Horse of the Year, is among 10 older horses in a competitive renewal of the Grade 2, $400,000 Dixie Stakes, the lead-in to the Preakness on a 13-race Saturday program at Pimlico.
Trained by Malcolm Pierce, Up With the Birds will be trying to rebound off a subpar effort last month at Keeneland in his only start so far this year. The 4-year-old colt will be ridden by Joel Rosario when breaking from post 8 in the 113th running of the Dixie.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. – Suffolk Downs, which had planned to add Tuesdays to its live-racing calendar beginning next week, has scratched the cards for May 20 and May 27 due to a shortage of horses.
“Right now, the horse population is not adequate to go to a four-day schedule. We’re going to have to take this on a week-by-week basis,” said Chip Tuttle, the track’s chief operating officer.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – There’s a new Chief in town this summer, and his name is Allen Jerkens.
Jerkens, known as “The Chief,” decided this month to stable year-round at Gulfstream Park rather than return to New York at the end of the winter season in southern Florida. He’s gone back to New York for the summer since he first came to Gulfstream in 1947.
“I missed opening day at Belmont Park for the first time in 68 years,” said Jerkens, 85, who has 10 horses stabled locally, including the multiple Grade 2-placed 3-year-old filly House Rules.
BALTIMORE – Bob Baffert began the year with 3-year-old prospects like Hoppertunity, Indianapolis, Midnight Hawk, and Tap It Rich. But when they kicked the gate for the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, his lone representative was Chitu, and he’s down to just one runner, Bayern, for the Preakness Stakes here Saturday at Pimlico.
When racing commences at Canterbury Park on Friday evening, the stable area’s nearly 1,600 stalls will be at capacity for only the second time since 1991. A marketing and purse enhancement agreement reached in 2012 with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, which owns and operates Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, will contribute $75 million to the horsemen’s purse structure over the deal’s 10-year span. This season, purses are estimated to reach a record $13 million for the 69-card meet, an average of just under $190,000 per day.
