Odds-on favorite Surfcup ($3.80) improved his record on turf to 3 for 3 with a facile win in the $100,000 Silky Sullivan on Sunday at Golden Gate Fields.
Coming off a win in the $300,000 Snow Chief at Betfair Hollywood Park, Surfcup won his second straight stakes for 3-year-old California-breds. He covered a mile on the Lakeside Turf Course in 1:37.54 to defeat the comebacking Gervinho by a length.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Shrug avenged his loss to Herbie D in the John Longden 6000 with a game win over Wilo Kat in the $50,000 Sir Winston Churchill at Hastings on Sunday. Sent off as the second choice in the wagering behind Herbie D, who finished third, Shrug paid $7.
SHAKOPEE, Minn. – Canterbury Park canceled the remainder of Sunday's 10-race card when the jockeys refused to ride race 4 because of unsafe track conditions.
After a delay of about 40 minutes while the track crew attempted to repair the surface, jockeys and track management determined that the track wasn’t safe for riding. It had rained overnight, leading to a sloppy track and Sunday’s turf races being moved to the main track, but horses were able to breeze on the surface during morning training hours.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Boisterous, the even-money favorite, made it look easy Sunday in a 1 1/4-length victory in the Grade 2, $202,500 Monmouth Stakes on turf before an Irish Festival crowd of 17,008.
John Velazquez guided the 6-year-old to an ideal trip over Monmouth Park’s tight-turned course rated “good.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Overheard, rallying furiously, was up in the last jump to capture Sunday’s $130,250 Alywow Stakes by a nose over the front-running Akron Moon.
The Alywow, an open, 6 1/2-furlong turf stakes for 3-year-old fillies, went with a field of eight, but Spring Venture, the 6-5 favorite under Joel Rosario, was eliminated when she literally walked out of the gate from her outside post.
Overheard was ridden by Eurico Rosa da Silva, who positioned her off the pace on the inside before switching out for the stretch drive.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Nipissing probably punched her ticket to the prestigious Queen’s Plate when she outran the favored Spring in the Air to win the $500,000 Woodbine Oaks on Sunday.
Nipissing ($7.10) rated kindly in fifth on the backstretch under Steven Bahen. Her stablemate, Original Script, set moderate splits of 23.89 seconds, 48.49, and 1:13.01 in the 1 1/8-mile route for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Sarach, who won the $150,750 Honeymoon Handicap for 3-year-old fillies Saturday, will have a familiar list of rivals when she starts in the $350,000 American Oaks on July 14.
The second- through fourth-place finishers in the Grade 2 Honeymoon Handicap – Scarlet Strike, Macha, and Becky Lou – are candidates for the Grade 1 American Oaks, which is run over 1 1/4 miles on turf. The American Oaks is California’s richest race for 3-year-old fillies.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – At 5, Tale of a Champion has a new career.
His win in Saturday’s $200,250 Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap over 1 1/4 miles on turf at Betfair Hollywood Park confirmed trainer Kristin Mulhall’s opinion that longer races should be the focus for Tale of a Champion for the rest of 2013.
“He just wants to go a distance,” Mulhall said Sunday. “When you gallop him, he’ll run off for two miles, and you still can’t pull him up. He’ll work in 1:01, and he’ll gallop-out a mile in 1:40 with you trying to pull him up. He’s got a lot of blood in him.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Dynamic Sky closed five wide under Joel Rosario and caught 12-1 shot His Race to Win late to win Sunday’s $150,800 Plate Trial Stakes, an important prep for the July 7 Queen’s Plate at Woodbine.
Dynamic Sky ($8.60) bided his time near the back of the 10-horse field in the 1 1/8-mile route, as Midnight Aria and Holy Whirl Wind vied through honest fractions. Dynamic Sky commenced his rally on the far turn in unison with a four-wide His Race to Win, who hit the front in midstretch before Dynamic Sky nailed him on the wire to prevail by a nose in 1:50.59.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Paynter, who won the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational last July and then fought through severe bouts with colic and laminitis, has been entered in a $62,000 allowance race at Betfair Hollywood Park on Friday.
Paynter is part of a field of eight for the seven-furlong race, which will be the seventh on an eight-race program. The race will be run at about 4 p.m. Pacific.
