Delaunay, a four-length winner of the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes on the Derby undercard for owner Maggi Moss, will get a brief respite before undertaking a campaign designed to get him to the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup Sprint in peak form, trainer Tom Amoss said.
“I wish the Breeders’ Cup was in four weeks,” Amoss said. “It’s not, so we’ll work backward from it and try to figure the best way to get there.”
Delaunay earned a 109 Beyer Speed Figure on Saturday, his sixth straight triple-digit mark.
ELMONT, N.Y. – A familiar cast of characters reconvenes in Thursday’s $85,000 Corma Ray overnight stakes for older New York-breds, including four horses whom David Jacobson either currently trains or used to train.
Jacobson entered Be Bullish and Uncle T Seven in the seven-furlong race. Two others formerly under his tutelage, Fiddlers Afleet and Ground Force, figure to make their presence felt as well.
Also entered in the competitive sprint were likely favorite Johannesburg Smile; last year’s Hudson Stakes winner, Mine Over Matter; and Cap the Moment.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ken McPeek said his Kentucky Oaks starter, Pure Fun, will be sidelined indefinitely after being diagnosed with what he described as “an ankle issue” following the filly’s sixth-place finish Friday in the filly classic at Churchill Downs.
At 3, Pure Fun has not returned to the form that carried her to victory in the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet in December.
“It’s nothing major, and we’re still trying to determine whether it’ll require surgery or not,” McPeek said earlier this week.
As of Tuesday, the prospective Preakness field was holding steady at 12 3-year-olds following one addition and one subtraction.
Maryland Jockey Club officials reported early Tuesday that trainer D. Wayne Lukas will run Titletown Five in the Preakness, a fact later confirmed by David Miller, a co-owner of the colt. That gives Lukas a third Preakness runner, along with Oxbow and Will Take Charge.
Within minutes of the Titletown Five announcement, trainer Ken McPeek said via Twitter that he was withdrawing Bellarmine from consideration for the Preakness.
How the 139th Kentucky Derby unfolded Saturday, May 4, at Churchill Downs:
Normandy Invasion finds himself in tight shortly after the break as he gets squeezed between Golden Soul and Mylute while Orb gets away cleanly from the auxiliary starting gate. [Photo: Jenny Burgos]
Lovely Syn made it 3 for 3 with an impressive 9 1/2-length victory in Sunday’s $100,000 Park Avenue Division of the New York Stallion Stakes and most likely will make her next start in the $125,000 Bouwerie Stakes on June 1.
All of Lovely Syn’s wins have come sprinting, and the Bouwerie Stakes is at seven furlongs, but trainer Dominick Schettino hasn’t ruled out stretching out Lovely Syn in distance at some point.
“We’ll stretch her out little by little,” Schettino said. “Watching her gallop out and the way she does things, we’re hoping she can go further.”
The Manitoba Jockey Club, in a decision released Monday afternoon, has won its case against the province of Manitoba and will not have its budget slashed for the 2013 meeting.
"We are very pleased to see that the court agreed with our argument," said Darren Dunn, chief executive officer of Assiniboia Downs. "There is more work to be done, but today is a good day for horse racing in Manitoba."
Trainer Todd Pletcher, who could do no better than third with his five runners in the Kentucky Derby, is expected to send out the duo of Abraham and Battier in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes.
Abraham, a son of Distorted Humor, is coming off a fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Illinois Derby. Prior to that, he finished third in the Sunland Derby.
Battier, a son of Tale of the Cat, is a recent addition to the Pletcher barn after being purchased privately by Eclipse Thoroughbreds.
Trainer Todd Pletcher won the 2007 Belmont Stakes with the filly Rags to Riches. He may try to do it again with Unlimited Budget and/or Dreaming of Julia, the third- and fourth-place finishers in last Friday’s Kentucky Oaks.
“They’re both intriguing fillies at the distance; both ownership groups mentioned the possibility of keeping an eye on it,” Pletcher said Sunday at Churchill Downs. “We’ll see how they ship and how they train and such.”
Both Dreaming of Julia and Unlimited Budget arrived back at Belmont on Sunday.
The New York-bred Hessonite overcame some traffic Saturday to win the Grade 3 Beaugay Stakes by three-quarters of a length over Peace Preserver.
The win was the first in a graded stakes for Hessonite, a daughter of Freud who is now 10 for 19. Hessonite has earned $803,310 for owners Philip DiLeo and William Punk Jr.
David Donk, the trainer of Hessonite, said he would likely point Hessonite for the Sheepshead Bay on May 25.
