Multiple stakes winner Ponzi Scheme got a perfect trip behind pacesetter I’m Steppin’ It Up and snapped a nine-race losing streak by winning the $51,075 Stymie Stakes on Thursday at Delaware Park.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – All over the country Saturday, there is money up for grabs – more than $3 million in 11 graded stakes. And that means good stakes betting for horseplayers, with sizable fields on tap for many of those lucrative races.
Belmont Park has the richest race of the day, the $600,000 Man o’ War, but it is Betfair Hollywood Park and Arlington that offer the most graded races on their cards. And the Warrior will focus his gaze on those.
American Oaks
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – General Election won the Arlington Classic, the first leg of Arlington’s loosely linked Mid-America Triple for 3-year-old grass horses, but Leg 2 of the series, Saturday’s American Derby, could play out any number of ways. General Election was only marginally better than three other Arlington Classic starters who run back Saturday, and the Arlington Classic as a whole might not have been all the great, leaving the door open for a newcomer to step forward.
AUBURN, Wash. – Trainer Jeff Metz, who is enjoying a productive first season at Emerald Downs, could add to his haul Saturday when he sends out two starters, including likely favorite Max Cooper, in the featured ninth race, a $10,000 claimer for older horses at 1 1/16 miles. First post for the 10-race card is 2 p.m. Pacific.
Metz, who arrived from Turf Paradise in March, had saddled 23 winners through the first 38 days of the meeting, and his two starters in Saturday’s feature, Max Cooper and M Two Forty, have combined for five of those victories.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – A younger Teddy’s Promise would have surrendered during a brutal trip in a minor stakes last month at Betfair Hollywood Park.
Never mind that she was the odds-on favorite. Teddy’s Promise does not typically overcome trouble, and there was plenty of it. Trapped and blocked along the rail, Teddy’s Promise steadied at the three-eighths pole and steadied sharply at the head of the lane.
“Last year, if that would have happened, she would have packed it in,” trainer Ron Ellis said.
ELMONT, N.Y. – On the day when Belmont Park hosts the Grade 1 Man o’ War, the track also honors a two-time winner of that race by running the $100,000 Solar Splendor Stakes, which drew an excellent field of 3-year-old turf horses.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – The Arlington Handicap dates to 1929. The legendary Round Table won it twice, in 1958 and 1959, and Cosmonaut came home first in 2006 and 2007. But Rahystrada on Saturday can become the first horse to win the Arlington Handicap three times, a feat that would be especially noteworthy coming from a 9-year-old former claimer.
Rahystrada won the 2010 Arlington Handicap, didn’t start in the 2011 edition, and won again last year, going on to finish third in the Arlington Million.
A panel of Daily Racing Form staff members voted on the 10 most memorable races in Saratoga history.
Of the thousands of races run at Saratoga, the 1962 Travers was a clear winner as the top race in track history. Neither horse involved was a history maker, but from the instant they launched from the starting gate at 4:48 p.m. Eastern, history was being made.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – There’s a tendency to think that European imports have a natural inclination to perform optimally on soft turf. That thought might hold true in a general sense, but it does not apply to the 4-year-old filly Strathnaver.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The custom of winning a maiden race with a 2-year-old and then advancing to a stakes is being challenged this weekend at Betfair Hollywood Park.
In Saturday’s $150,000 Hollywood Juvenile Championship, four of the seven runners in the Grade 3 race at six furlongs are maidens, and three are first-time starters – Bond Holder, Carson’s Ten, and Knock Em Flat.
They must beat two runners with stakes experience – Willie B Awesome and Solid Wager, who were second and third, respectively, in the Willard Proctor Memorial Stakes on June 15.