INGLEWOOD, Calif. – R S Watson is unbeaten in two starts at the Betfair Hollywood Park meeting, with an excellent chance to extend that streak in a first-level $80,000 optional claimer on Friday.
If R S Watson can beat four rivals in the race at 1 1/16 miles, he may not be done for meeting, which ends on July 14. Trainer Adam Kitchingman said he would entertain running R S Watson in the $150,000 Swaps Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/8 miles next Thursday.
OPELOUSAS, La. – Jockey Ricky Faul is calling it a career after 35 years in the saddle. The 51-year-old native of Sunset, La., retires with 3,364 victories in a career that began with his first win at Delta Downs in March 1978.
“It’s been a good run,” Faul said. “Heck, it’s been a great run. I don’t want to [retire], but I have to. I sure don’t want to go out in a wheelchair.”
Madeira Park returns to Northlands Park on Friday in search of her first win of the year in the $50,000 John Patrick. The one-mile feature for fillies and mares drew seven horses and appears to be a wide-open event.
Based on her easy wins in the $50,000 Sonoma and the $50,000 Duchess of York at Northlands, Madeira Park was voted the champion 3-year-old filly in Alberta last year. Trained by Dave Forster, Madeira Park won the 1 1/16-mile stakes races by a combined total of 14 1/4 lengths.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Howie Tesher became a tiny piece of Gulfstream Park history Tuesday when he sent out Justanoceanaway to capture the final race on the first summer card ever held at the track. Twenty years earlier, Tesher wrote a larger piece of track history by saddling the 29-1 Bull Inthe Heather to upset the 1993 Florida Derby.
Tesher stood in the winner’s circle, in front of a nearly deserted grandstand, following Justanoceanaway’s easy win Tuesday and mused about both the past and present at Gulfstream.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – All restrictions placed on horses in Woodbine’s Barn 1, which had been under quarantine since June 12, were removed Wednesday.
Adam Chambers, manager of veterinary services for the Ontario Racing Commission, announced that all horses in the barn had tested negative twice for the equine herpesvirus that infected five horses in that barn.
One 2-year-old had to be euthanized and another was sent to the University of Guelph’s veterinary clinic, where he recovered and is now on the farm.
A circuit court in Louisiana has upheld the fines and suspensions the state’s racing commission issued in two separate cases involving the painkiller dermorphin that had dated back to last year’s Thoroughbred meet at Evangeline Downs.
Trainers Anthony Agilar and Kyi Lormand were each suspended three years and fined $2,500 when horses in their care tested positive for the illegal painkiller in May 2012. Their suspensions were to have started Monday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Gulfstream Park closed out its 2012-2013 winter meet with the first summer racing program in track history, handling $1,986,428 on an eight-race card here Tuesday.
Gulfstream needed to run one live program between the original closing date of its 2012-2013 meet on April 5 and the end of the fiscal year in south Florida on June 30 to become its own simulcast hub rather than be required to use Calder as its hub as in the past. Gulfstream will open its 2013 summer meeting on July 1.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – When Horizon Sky starts in an allowance over 1 1/16 miles on turf in Thursday’s seventh race at Betfair Hollywood Park, he may finally race at his ideal distance.
The allowance could lead to appearances in stakes at Del Mar later this summer. For bettors, Horizon Sky could be a key runner on pick six tickets on a day when the bet starts with a carryover of $94,896.
The pool of new money could exceed $650,000.
Horizon Sky is part of a field of six 3-year-olds in Thursday’s seventh race, the smallest field in the pick six sequence.
MIAMI – Trainer Wesley Ward’s long list of stakes wins grew even more impressive within a 48-hour span last week with victories by No Nay Never at Royal Ascot in the Group 2 Norfolk and the undefeated 2-year-old filly Sweetmarys Success here at Calder on Saturday in the $100,000 J J’sdream Stakes.
But the one thing still missing from that r é sum é is a Grade 1 victory, a gap Ward hopes to finally fill July 6 when he sends Judy the Beauty to Calder for the Princess Rooney Handicap.
