ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Todd Pletcher’s 3-year-olds are pretty good on turf, too.
One week after winning the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes with Palace Malice and the Grade 2 Woody Stephens with Forty Tales, Pletcher captured the Grade 3, $150,000 Hill Prince Stakes at Belmont Park with Notacatbutallama, who worked an outside-inside-outside trip and outfinished longshot Play It Loud to win by a neck.
At Fair Grounds last winter, Coalport gave the impression of a horse whose best races might have come early in his career. That impression is changing.
Coalport’s rise has been helped along by a move from open company to Illinois-bred competition, but there may be more to it than just that, and a sharp victory in the $87,850 Black Tie Affair Handicap on Saturday at Arlington suggested that Coalport could be ready for a return to open stakes competition.
Bryan’s Jewel had to work harder than her 1-5 odds dictated, but she still got the job done Saturday, winning her second stakes at Delaware Park on back-to-back weekends.
A week after scoring by 3 3/4 lengths in the off-the-turf John Rooney Memorial, the 5-year-old Bryan’s Jewel ($2.60) outfought 10-1 outsider And Why Not to win the Grade 3, $109,125 Obeah Stakes for fillies and mares.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Ultimate Destiny ($9.50) edged out Good Better Best to notch his first stakes victory Saturday at Woodbine in the $125,800 Steady Growth.
Ultimate Destiny had an ideal stalking trip in the 1 1/16-mile route and took dead aim at Good Better Best in the stretch before getting up by a head in 1:44.33. Bobcaygeon finished another four lengths back in third, a nose in front of Head Honcho. The favored Fifty Proof faded to sixth in the field of 10 Ontario-sired runners after tracking a slow pace on the outside.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – The Illinois-bred filly La Tia was a good 3-year-old, stepping out of statebred-restricted competition to win the Grade 3 Arlington Oaks and the $153,000 La Lorgnette at Woodbine. But from the appearance of things, she might be even better at 4.
La Tia cruised to a third-level allowance victory May 11 while making her first start of the year, and she just as easily won the $83,400 Lincoln Heritage Stakes for Illinois-breds on Saturday at Arlington in her second race this season.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Dance to Bristol more than passed her audition.
Returning to New York for the first time in 17 months, Dance to Bristol rolled to a 2 3/4-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Bed o’ Roses Handicap at Belmont Park.
Fantasy of Flight, who set the pace, held second by one length over Delightful Quality. Withgreatpleasure finished fourth followed by Willet. Munnings Sister, who won the Smart and Fancy Stakes here on Thursday, scratched.
ELMONT, N.Y. – A public hearing at Belmont Park on Saturday morning turned rowdy and raucous when union members, unhappy with the pace of contract negotiations, shouted down members of the New York Racing Association’s management team.
The forum, moderated by NYRA television analyst Andy Serling, was an opportunity for racing fans to open a dialogue with the operators of Belmont, Aqueduct, and Saratoga. A crowd of more than 100 packed the Trustees’ Room on the second floor of the clubhouse.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Paynter’s thrilling comeback win in an allowance race at Betfair Hollywood Park on Friday was more than a brilliant performance. It was very fast, too.
Paynter ran seven furlongs in 1:21.86, earning a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 114 in his first start since overcoming colitis and laminitis last summer and fall.
On Saturday, trainer Bob Baffert said Paynter emerged from his victory in ideal shape.
“It was nothing for him,” Baffert said. “He handled it really well.”
It’s time for Sentimental Lass to show whether she still wants to race or would be better off beginning a new career as a broodmare.
Unable to regain the form that made her the winner of a $100,000 stakes as a 2-year-old and the runner-up to 2010 juvenile filly champion Awesome Feather in a minor stakes in 2011, the now-5-year-old Sentimental Lass looks to win her first race in nearly two years in Tuesday’s $25,000 allowance feature at Finger Lakes.
Rain continued to fall in the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, area on Saturday, washing out the opening weekend of the 2013 meeting at Marquis Downs.
Marquis Downs races only on Fridays and Saturdays and racing is scheduled to resume this week.
