Despite an ugly-looking last running line, in which she went from first to last within a half-mile and did not finish the course, Alpha J may be an intriguing contender in the July 4 feature at Finger Lakes.
Alpha J will be making her second start off the claim for perennial leading trainer Chris Englehart in the $50,000 Niagara Stakes, a six-furlong sprint for New York-bred 3-year-old fillies.
A company affiliated with the New York Racing Association is offering a package of amenities for most race cards at Saratoga Race Course this summer, according to NYRA.
The company, CID Entertainment, is selling the packages for $159 per person for Thursday-through-Sunday cards at Saratoga, with the exception of Aug. 24, the date of the Travers Stakes, when the package will be available for $259 per person.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Monmouth Park celebrates Independence Day with a special holiday card topped by the Grade 3, $100,000 Jersey Shore Stakes for 3-year-old sprinters.
The six-furlong race drew a field of seven, including the unbeaten Rainbow Heir. The New Jersey-bred chestnut colt is 3 for 3 heading into his stakes debut.
Belmont Park dodged raindrops all last week, and Mother Nature’s continued cooperation would be appreciated through a Fourth of July card that includes three turf stakes and the first scheduled 2-year-old grass race of the season.
Heading the holiday lineup is the Grade 3, $150,000 Poker Stakes, a one-mile race on the Widener course that attracted seven turf-meant older males, headed by four-time graded stakes winner Data Link.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – It took him a while to get there, but Alley Oop Oop found himself a home when finally getting the opportunity to compete on turf last fall. On Thursday, trainer Stanley Gold is hoping Alley Oop Oop will find a home away from home when he tries the Gulfstream Park turf course for the first time in the $100,000 Armed Forces, the first stakes race of the 2013 summer meet.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – It was quiet on the Queen’s Plate front here Tuesday, with the 11 confirmed entrants all having completed their major work for Sunday’s $1 million showpiece.
The post position draw for the Queen’s Plate, the 1 1/4-mile race that is the first leg of the Triple Crown for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds, will take place at the annual Queen’s Plate breakfast here Thursday.
The voice may be vaguely familiar. Keith Nelson called races at The Woodlands in Kansas for five years and “maybe 10 or 11” programs in 2008 at Ellis Park when pressed into service following the untimely death of Luke Kruytbosch.
“My time at Ellis was a good experience under horrible circumstances,” recalled Nelson.
Ellis Park has had its ups and downs in m ore than 90 years of existence, with closures, bankruptcy, changing ownership, employees’ strikes, horsemen’s boycotts, and even a devastating tornado in fall 2005.
So the latest problem to arise was little more than a proverbial bump in the road for the western Kentucky track. Valid complaints that the main racing surface was full of rocks were made public two weeks out from the 2013 opener on Thursday.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Delegation, a 4-year-old gelding owned by Gary Barber and trained by Mark Casse, was an overpowering winner of Monday’s Grade 3 Dominion Day Stakes.
Delegation set a track record of 2:01.51 in the 1 1/4-mile Dominion Day, bettering the old mark of 2:01.99 established by Strait of Dover in last year’s Queen’s Plate.
His Beyer Speed Figure clocked in at 110, the highest for a two-turn race since the Polytrack surface was introduced in summer 2006.
Thursday’s first running of the $75,000 Casual Lies Handicap – formerly known as the Sam Whiting Handicap – has come up unusually contentious. For example, Ain’t No Other has won three stakes, placed in graded stakes, and was the runner-up in last year’s Sam Whiting, yet he’s not even the favorite.
Named for the 1992 Kentucky Derby runner-up, the Casual Lies drew a field of six 3-year-olds and up who will run six furlongs on the dirt track at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif.
