INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Freakin Rocket, unbeaten after two starts following a victory in an optional claimer for sprinters Thursday, will start on turf in the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes at Del Mar on July 17.
The Oceanside Stakes is run over a mile on turf for 3-year-olds and will be Freakin Rocket’s first start beyond 6 1/2 furlongs.
“We’re thinking of stretching him out,” trainer Tim Yakteen said after Thursday’s race. “He moves like a turf horse and relaxed like a turf horse.”
Kentucky Derby winner Orb, who was sent to the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland the day after the Belmont Stakes, returned to the track Friday, jogging over the facility’s dirt surface.
Trainer Shug McGaughey said Orb was to begin galloping Saturday and would likely return to Belmont in a week or so.
“All reports are good,” McGaughey said. “I planned on bringing him up here, but I spoke to Bruce [Jackson] for a good while and Bruce was so high on how he was doing down there we decided to keep him there.”
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Acclamation, the champion older male of 2011, has been retired from racing and will not resume training after standing his first season at stud this year in California, owner Bud Johnston said Thursday.
In early spring, Johnston said there was a possibility that Acclamation could return to training and race in the second half of the year. Those plans were abandoned after a recent MRI revealed that a strained ligament in a foreleg would not allow Acclamation to resume racing and training.
AUBURN, Wash. – Doris Harwood doesn’t need to be reminded that when one door closes, another opens wide. A week ago, Harwood and her husband, Jeff, made the difficult decision to retire their homebred stable star Noosa Beach after he suffered a setback in training. A week later, Harwood will saddle Noosa Beach’s full brother Music of My Soul to compete Sunday in the $50,000 Coca-Cola Handicap at Emerald Downs.
Isn’t He Clever has rarely made a wrong move in New Mexico. He has compiled a 6-for-8 record in the state, and on Sunday will be returning to it to lead the $75,000 San Juan County Commissioners Handicap at SunRay Park in Farmington.
Isn’t He Clever is the 123-pound highweight for the 1 1/8-mile race. He faces six others, including Gregor and Imco Spirit, the 1-2 finishers in the $35,000 Inaugural at SunRay on April 19, and Vamoose, a multiple stakes winner in New Mexico.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - With slightly more than six months before the closure of Betfair Hollywood Park for demolition, Southern California racing executives have yet to finalize plans for alternative off-track stabling for 2014, the California Horse Racing Board was told on Thursday.
The closure of Hollywood Park will displace more than 1,000 horses whose trainers are based there on a year-round basis.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Sickness, depression, and a lack of stock drove trainer Pat Reynolds out of Thoroughbred racing for about 16 months beginning in the fall of 2010.
After minimal success upon his return, things have picked up nicely this spring for the 62-year-old Reynolds, who hopes he can return to the high level at which he was competing a few years ago.
MIAMI – Trainer Leo Azpurua Jr. will nominate his multiple-stakes-placed Bellefire to next Saturday’s Grade 2 Smile Sprint. But unless Calder management suddenly decides to lengthen the race from six to seven furlongs during the next two weeks, it’s not likely Bellefire will run.
AUBURN, Wash. – Trainer Tom Wenzel looks to have his rivals surrounded Sunday in the $50,000 Irish Day Handicap at Emerald Downs. Only six horses were entered to compete in the meeting’s second stakes race for 3-year-old fillies, and Wenzel has the three leading contenders with Stopshoppingdebbie, Goin to the Window, and Blueberry Smoothie, who ran first, second, and third in the Seattle Handicap on May 26.
MIAMI - Trainer Kathleen O’Connell knew going in that Reporting Star was a little overmatched going up against the likes of Verrazano and Itsmyluckyday last Sunday in Monmouth Park’s Grade 3 Pegasus. But with few others options at the time, she decided to make Reporting Star part of the five-horse field and was rewarded in the end when the son of Circular Quay finished second behind the odds-on Verrazano.
