| Pyrite Smokin |
| There was a time when this mare was capable of showing up with a competitive performance at this level of competition, but you have to go back a long way to find the last time she recorded a victory, and she hasn't finished 1-2 from 12 starts over this turf course. |
| Fives and Nines |
ARCADIA, Calif. – Tom’s Tribute was a game second in the Grade 2 Arcadia Stakes over a mile on turf at Santa Anita on Feb. 1, his stakes debut against older horses. He may be even better when he makes his Grade 1 debut in Saturday’s $350,000 Frank Kilroe Mile on turf.
The 4-year-old Tom’s Tribute impressed jockey Gary Stevens and trainer Jim Cassidy with his training in February.
“Gary said the colt has moved up five or six lengths,” Cassidy said on Monday. “Gary worked the horse every time since he ran. If the horse doesn’t run good, I’ll blame it on him.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Most of the attention Saturday in the Grade 2, $250,000 Gulfstream Park Handicap will be focused on Palace Malice and Itsmyluckyday, two of the major players on last year’s Triple Crown trail. Both will launch their 4-year-old campaigns in the race.
But the horse to beat could be another member of last year’s Triple Crown crop, Falling Sky, who already has turned in a couple of big efforts over the track this winter, including a 5 1/2-length triumph in the seven-furlong Gulfstream Park Sprint Championship on Feb. 8.
Cast in Silver was made one of the 23 individual interests in last week’s Kentucky Oaks Future Wager after she won her debut by 5 1/2 lengths here on Feb. 14. She makes her second start Thursday in a $50,000 optional claimer at one mile.
Cast in Silver earned an 86 Beyer Speed Figure in her debut at six furlongs, a better number than Eclipse Award winner She’s a Tiger has achieved.
Plans are fluid for Sunbean, who won his fourth straight race and his eighth from 13 career starts when he captured the Star Guitar Stakes by almost three lengths Saturday.
Sunbean, 7 for 7 in Louisiana-bred stakes competition, will be nominated to the March 29 New Orleans Handicap, but trainer Ron Faucheux is more inclined to bide his time than rush Sunbean back into action.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Neither Chris Kay, the New York Racing Association’s chief executive and president, nor Martin Panza, NYRA’s senior vice president of racing operations, was at Aqueduct for Saturday’s first meaningful card of 2014, featuring the Grade 3, $500,000 Gotham Stakes – the second-richest race of the winter/spring meet – and two other graded stakes.
Trainer Larry Jones said Monday he isn’t certain what’s next for the promising 3-year-old The Trunk Monkey, who ran his record to 2 for 2 with an allowance win Friday at Fair Grounds. But Jones is fairly sure that Divine Beauty, a good second behind Unbridled Forever in the Jan. 18 Silverbulletday Stakes, won’t make the March 29 Fair Grounds Oaks.
Divine Beauty, who won her first two starts, last posted a timed workout Feb. 3, when she went a slow five furlongs after finishing 1 1/2 lengths behind Unbridled Forever in the Silverbulletday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Multiple Grade 1 winner Little Mike got his first feel for the local strip since arriving from Ocala, Fla., on Saturday, breezing a very easy three furlongs in 38.23 seconds on Monday at Gulfstream for his owner and now trainer, Carlo Vaccarezza.
Little Mike, whose biggest win came in the 2012 Breeders' Cup Turf, has not started since finishing ninth in the Hong Kong Cup on Dec. 8.
◗ A carryover of $2,141,640 will be up for grabs in the Rainbow 6 when racing resumes with a 10-race card Wednesday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Mean Season, who looked to be developing into a top-flight sprinter, will be out indefinitely due to an injury he sustained in winning an allowance race at Aqueduct on Saturday.
According to trainer Bill Mott, Mean Season suffered “an avulsion fracture at the origin of the suspensory” of his left foreleg. That type of injury involves a bone and soft tissue that makes it somewhat tricky to determine how much time off the horse will need.
