The $75,000 Ponche Handicap serves as the traditional prep for Calder’s premier sprint race, the Grade 2 Smile. But never has the field for the Ponche been as strong or as deep as it will be Saturday, when two-time Grade 1 winner Jackson Bend takes on the Grade 3-placed Bahamian Squall, Grade 1-tested Trickmeister and five others in the feature event on the 12-race Summit of Speed Preview program.
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ELMONT, N.Y. – Though Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Woody Stephens appears loaded with early speed, there doesn’t appear to be anyone quicker than Let Em Shine, who has traveled cross-country for his graded stakes debut.
The question is whether Let Em Shine can carry that speed seven furlongs on a new – and possibly wet – track while facing the toughest competition he will meet to date.
The opening-night card at Virginia’s Colonial Downs, which features three races over the jumps, has attracted 108 horses for nine turf races, including 12 horses for the featured David L. Ferguson Memorial Hurdle Stakes, designated a Grade 3 by the National Steeplechase Association.
The David L. Ferguson has a scheduled post of 6:56 p.m. Eastern as the third race on the card, 20 minutes after the post time for the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown. Colonial officials said that the Belmont will be broadcast on the track’s Jumbotron.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Another Triple Crown season will come to an end Saturday with the running of the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes, and so too will another season of Daily Racing Form’s Triple Crown clocker’s reports.
Many of the Belmont starters have become very familiar figures out on the racetrack each morning, having competed in all three legs of the Triple Crown. Among them is Orb, who pretty much touted his Kentucky Derby victory with the way he trained up to the race both in Florida and following his arrival at Churchill Downs.
AUBURN, Wash. – The future looked bright for Carrabelle Harbor after she won her first two starts, both stakes races, back in 2010. Yet when she starts Saturday in the feature race at Emerald Downs, the 5-year-old Carrabelle Harbor will be trying to get back to the winner’s circle for the first time in nearly two years. Her lengthy losing streak aside, she is likely to start as the favorite in a field of five fillies and mares racing 6 1/2 furlongs in a first-level allowance with a $32,000 optional claiming price. First post for the nine-race card is 2 p.m. Pacific.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Irsaal was an easy winner of the second start of his career last October, but was pummeled in four subsequent starts through this February. His trainer, Kiaran McLaughlin, believed he was a far better prospect than that, so he had Irsaal gelded, and began using Lasix.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – From the standpoint of wagering opportunity, the Addison Cammack Handicap is the worst of four stakes races carded Saturday at Arlington. But the five-horse Cammack includes Work All Week, an Illinois-bred who might turn out to be one of the better sprinters in the Midwest.
ELMONT, N.Y. − The worst thing to ever happen to Freedom Child may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to Freedom Child.
With one chance to crack the field for the Kentucky Derby, Freedom Child, coming off a maiden victory, ran in the Grade 1 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. Well, he attempted to run in the Wood Memorial.
Black Hornet, winner of the seven-furlong Queenston for Ontario-foaled 3-year-olds here May 11, was not eligible for the Queen’s Plate and was supplemented at a cost of $5,000 last Saturday with an eye toward Sunday’s Plate Trial.
Unfortunately, Black Hornet is ailing and will not be in the Plate Trial lineup.
“We’re hoping we can have him ready for the Achievement,” said Pat Parente, who trains Black Hornet and owns the gelding in partnership with Dean Ventresca and Joe Guerieri.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Caixa Eletronica and Fast Bullet are as different as two horses can get. About the only thing the two have in common is that they’ll both be in the starting gate for Saturday’s $400,000 True North Handicap at Belmont Park.
The six-furlong True North drew a field of seven speedsters that includes Justin Phillip, who will race coupled in the wagering with Fast Bullet as the Zayat Stables entry. Laurie’s Rocket, Reload, Off the Jak and Sage Valley complete the compact lineup.