Trainer Doug O’Neill is sending a team of six runners to Dubai on Monday with the goal of having a representative or two in the Group 2 United Arab Emirates Derby on March 25.
The $1 million UAE Derby is run at 1 3/16 miles and is a pivotal qualifying race for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 6.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jockey Tyler Gaffalione booted home the 2,000th winner of his outstanding riding career in the sixth race Friday at Gulfstream Park.
Gaffalione, 28, grew up in nearby Davie; both his grandfather, Robert, and father, Steve, were jockeys. He rode his first winner in September 2014 at Gulfstream and went on to earn the Eclipse Award for outstanding apprentice in 2015. His greatest victories include the 2019 Preakness with War of Will and two Breeders’ Cup events last fall at Keeneland.
Ginobili, who won the second stakes of his career in the Fifth Season Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Jan. 14, is likely to race in the Middle East in coming months.
Trainer Peter Miller said on Friday that races in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 25 and Dubai on March 25 are under consideration.
The options include a start in the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap, a $600,000 race at 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn Park on Feb. 18, followed by the Group 2 Godolphin Mile or Group 1 Golden Shaheen Sprint at six furlongs in Dubai.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jason Huayas is not your typical apprentice jockey.
He did not graduate from a famous jockeys school and didn’t start riding races until last April at the age of 29. Now 30, married with two children, Huayas is trying to launch a career in one of the toughest professions around. With nine wins at Aqueduct since Dec. 1, things are off to a promising start. Overall, Huayas has ridden 21 winners in his career and rides as a seven-pound apprentice.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Al Stall Jr. has made the occasional trip to Gulfstream Park for long-ago Breeders’ Cups and such, but his recollection of the only time he actually ran a horse here isn’t a very good one.
“The Pegasus, the mud,” Stall said Friday from his Fair Grounds base in New Orleans when recalling the 27-length drubbing of Tom’s d’Etat in the 2019 Pegasus World Cup, which was won over a very sloppy track by City of Light. “Really wasn’t all that much fun.”
Racing dates and venues for the final week of August in Northern California remain unassigned after officials with the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale and Golden Gate Fields failed to reach an agreement on whether Humboldt will race unopposed, and the California Horse Racing Board was unable to broker a compromise at its meeting in Sacramento on Thursday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. -- Law Professor, dominant winner of the Queens County Stakes at Aqueduct on Jan. 7, will be considered for a start in the Grade 3, $600,000 Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn Park on Feb. 18, trainer Rob Atras said Thursday.
“It’s still a ways away, but that’s the race we’ll look at first,” Atras said. “We’ll see how he trains the next two weeks.”
Total wagering on races held at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston this year has plummeted 91 percent compared to betting last year through the first two weeks of the meet due to the inability of the track to accept bets from out-of-state markets.
Total wagering has dropped from $11.75 million on six days of live racing last year to $1.04 million on seven days of live racing this year, according to records obtained through the Equibase database. The average per-race handle has dropped from $217,595 to $16,697, a decline of 92.3 percent.
The last time a real Kentucky Derby horse came out of Chicago was 2002, when War Emblem won the Illinois Derby at defunct Sportsman’s Park for trainer Bobby Springer, subsequently was purchased by Ahmed bin Salman, and three weeks after the Illinois Derby won the Kentucky Derby for trainer Bob Baffert.
Fair Grounds in recent years has offered allowance race options for 3-year-olds either on the same day or the day before the Lecomte in January and the Risen Star in February. These are meant to accommodate runners not quite ready for prime time, but the first-level allowance on Saturday, race 9, doesn’t look like a much easier spot than the Lecomte, race 14.
