With the Midwest in the grips of a brutal heat wave, Wednesday’s eight-race program at Churchill Downs has been canceled because of excessive heat.
A National Weather Service excessive heat warning for Louisville, Ky., is effect until Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Heat index values of 105 to 109 are forecast for Wednesday.
Churchill Downs announced on Saturday morning the immediate suspension of turf racing and training over its course that debuted at this current spring-summer meeting, with a pause to last at least two weeks. The suspension certainly will impact what would have been some of the featured allowance-level events over the next week.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Cyberknife earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 94 for his game nose victory in the Grade 3 Matt Winn Stakes over a tenacious Howling Time on Sunday at Churchill Downs. The number he earned bettered the 92 he posted in winning the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby in April. He finished 18th in the Kentucky Derby after tracking a brutal early pace. The Matt Winn was a fine rebound.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The New York Gaming Commission rejected the appeal by the connections of Battalion to have the voided claim of their horse from a May 28 race at Belmont Park overturned.
Owner Michael De Bella and trainer Bob Klesaris argued that the voiding of the claim of Battalion from them for $25,000 by owner Sandy Goldfarb and trainer Rob Atras was an abuse of the stewards’ discretionary powers under the circumstances and they were being penalized for it.
The heat wave moving through the Midwest has led Horseshoe Indianapolis to cancel its Monday and Tuesday live racing programs, the track announced Monday.
Horseshoe Indianapolis was scheduled to run 10 races on the Tuesday program, starting at 2:30 p.m. Eastern. Temperatures in central Indiana are expected to top 100 on Tuesday. The area is currently under a heat advisory that does not expire until Wednesday night.
Total handle on the Belmont Stakes on Saturday was down 16.5 percent compared to betting on the race last year, according to charts of the races.
Including multi-leg bets ending in the Belmont Stakes, total handle was $50.25 million, compared to $60.15 million last year. Both races had eight horses in the field.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Corniche, last year’s 2-year-old champion male, is being pointed to the Grade 2, $200,000 Amsterdam Stakes, a 6 1/2-furlong race at Saratoga on July 31 for his 3-year-old debut, trainer Todd Pletcher said Friday.
Corniche hasn’t raced since last November at Del Mar when he completed a perfect 3-for-3 season by winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar. He was trained as a juvenile by Bob Baffert.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Thursday’s seventh race at Belmont Park scratched down to a match race after seven of the nine entrants were scratched, four due to not having been administered Lasix in the proper window, according to the New York Racing Association.
Sonny Leon was already riding high when he went postward in his first Kentucky Derby last month aboard longshot Rich Strike. The jockey, who was seeking his first graded stakes victory in the classic, was coming off a career-best season in 2021.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Perhaps if Flightline had not been injured as a 2-year-old he would have started his career sooner. And if not for other minor setbacks following two of his races, perhaps he’d have more starts than just three by now.
But maybe, just maybe, all of this has been for the best. It certainly has led, inexorably, to this, the biggest test of his brief but brilliant career, in the Grade 1, $1 million Metropolitan Handicap on Saturday here at Belmont Park.
