Steve Asmussen and Tyler Gaffalione were in familiar positions atop the trainer and jockey standings when Churchill Downs wrapped up its 21-day, dirt-only meet Sunday.
Asmussen, with 20 winners at the meet, which began Oct. 31, extended his own Churchill record for most meet titles to 25. Gaffalione rode 34 winners, marking the sixth straight meet he has been the leading jockey at Churchill, dating to the 2020 spring meet. M and M Racing, with four wins, was the leading owner.
It’s been 10 years since Turfway Park ran its traditional stakes schedule. It’ll be one more before fans can be on hand to watch all the action at the Florence, Ky., track.
Turfway begins four months of winter action over Tapeta with an eight-race card Thursday evening. First post is 6:15 p.m. Eastern.
Invariably, it happens. A trainer or jockey is barely shy of a major milestone, and suddenly they can’t find the winner’s circle.
Gerald Bennett, the leading trainer at Tampa Bay Downs, is still three shy of becoming just the 14th trainer in North American racing history to win 4,000 races after going winless with his 13 starters during the first three days of the Tampa meet. Only one of those, however, was the post-time favorite.
Trainer John Sadler has been fined $5,000 by the California Horse Racing Board after Flagstaff tested positive for the banned medication clodronic acid, a bisphosphonate, following the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship in September 2020.
The penalty was part of a settlement agreement with the racing board and was announced in a ruling issued on Friday by Del Mar stewards Grant Baker, Luis Jauregui and Kim Sawyer. The ruling cited that Sadler “knowingly brought a horse into (a) CHRB enclosure that had been administered bisphosphonates within previous six months.”
DEL MAR, Calif. - The final three races of Saturday’s program at Del Mar produced an unforgettable hour for Nick Cosato, the managing director of the Slam Dunk Racing syndicate.
Slam Dunk co-owns Tezzaray, who won her stakes debut in the Grade 3 Jimmy Durante Stakes for 2-year-old fillies in the day’s seventh race. Two races later, Beyond Brilliant ($23.80) won the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby. Slam Dunk Racing did not have a runner in the Hollywood Derby, but Cosato made a successful series of bets on the race to give him a win in a track-sponsored handicapping tournament.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Chad Brown has yet to participate in the lucrative races in the Middle East. That could be about to change.
While Brown is far from committing to it, he will give strong consideration to pointing Miles D, winner of Saturday’s $150,000 Discovery at Aqueduct, to the $20 million Saudi Cup in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 26.
“I’m never looking to send my horses to other continents to run,” Brown said Sunday morning outside his Belmont Park barn. “I stick to my circuits, but that race has been on my mind if I had the right-styled horse.”
The 2-year-old filly Send for Me, a seven-length winner of her debut going six furlongs Saturday at Aqueduct, will be heading south for the winter, trainer Jonathan Thomas said Sunday.
He did not have any immediate plans for the daughter of Into Mischief, though he does plan on stretching the filly out in distance over the course of the winter.
On Saturday, she ran 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:19.29 and earned an 80 Beyer Speed Figure.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The 20-cent jackpot pick six has a mandatory payout at Del Mar on Sunday and begins with a carryover of $590,935 from Saturday’s program.
Bettors could easily add $4 million to the pool, track officials said.
The pick six covers the fourth through ninth races on a program that begins at 12:30 p.m. Pacific. The first race in the pick six sequence begins at 2 p.m., a maiden special weight race at six furlongs.
The pick six has one stakes – the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes, a one-mile turf race for fillies and mares that is the seventh race.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Tap the Faith, who overcame a slow start to win her career debut by a head, is likely to run in next Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Demoiselle Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Aqueduct, trainer Christophe Clement said.
A daughter of Tapit out of the Grade 1 Alabama winner Embellish the Lace, Tap the Faith was a $1.25 million yearling purchase by Claiborne Farm. She is listed as being owned by Manzanita Stables.
“She’s a beautiful filly, she’s very attractive,” Clement said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Multiple Grade 1 winner Code of Honor and the graded stakes-winning 3-year-old Following Sea are both targeting next Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile Stakes at Aqueduct.
Aloha West, the Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner, is also under consideration, according to Aron Wellman, the head of the Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners syndicate, which owns the horse.
