Churchill Downs this year will run on the Sunday prior to the Kentucky Derby for the first time since 2010. The track will also run its opening-day card during the afternoon rather than at night, the track said on Wednesday.
The addition of the Sunday, April 26, card means that Churchill will run live every day except Monday from opening day on April 25 until the Derby card on Saturday, May 2.
Bella Ballerina, a debut sprint winner at Keeneland in October before landing the 1 1/16-mile, Grade 2 Golden Rod on Nov. 29 at Churchill, remains very much on track to make her 3-year-old debut Feb. 14 in the Rachel Alexandra.
Trainer Brendan Walsh on Jan. 30 gave Bella Ballerina her stiffest drill of the winter, a five-furlong Fair Grounds move timed in 1:00.20, fastest among 43 works over the distance that morning.
“She keeps herself fit and there’s not a ton of work to do with her,” Walsh said. “She’s grown and gotten stronger, and all her works have been very good.”
Liberty National might be the value play of the Grade 3, $1 million Southwest Stakes on Friday at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark.
He’s listed at 10-1 on the morning line in the Kentucky Derby points race, one start after finishing a troubled second as the favorite in the Gun Runner at Fair Grounds.
Quatrocento, coming off a dominant, front-running victory in the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Stakes, may run in the Grade 3, $150,000 Canadian Turf at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 28, trainer Fausto Gutierrez said Monday.
Quatrocento, off three disappointing efforts at the graded stakes level, led at every call under Julien Leparoux and won the Tampa Bay by 3 3/4 lengths. His final time of 1:41.51 was more than a second faster than the mare Aussie Girl’s time for winning the Grade 3 Endeavour about an hour later. Quatrocento earned a 98 Beyer Speed Figure.
Kentucky Oaks hopeful Atropa won’t make the Rachel Alexandra Stakes on Feb. 14, nor will she start in any other near-term race.
Second in the Grade 2 Golden Rod to cap her 2-year-old campaign, Atropa checked in third, beaten a half-length, as the 1-2 favorite in the Silverbulletday last month at Fair Grounds.
“We’re going to regroup with her,” trainer Cherie DeVaux said. “She needs some time. She will go to Florida and get a work-up done.”
Winter Storm Fern wiped out what was supposed to be the first week of the classic meet at Oaklawn Park, and so the Hot Springs, Ark., track had to rearrange its schedule in a move that puts the Grade 3, $1 million Southwest Stakes on Friday.
The Kentucky Derby points race was originally slated for last Saturday.
“You can’t beat Mother Nature,” said Oaklawn president Lou Cella. “Hot Springs was just walloped.”
Cella said there were a couple of reasons for the Southwest to be run on a Friday.
Bloodstock agents far and wide have been telephoning owner Keith Plaisance since Synthetic delivered a wickedly fast dirt sprint performance Saturday at Fair Grounds.
Synthetic, a Louisiana-bred 4-year-old filly by Midshipman, won her career debut June 25 at Evangeline Downs by nine lengths, earning a strong 86 Beyer Speed Figure and so thoroughly dominating her competition that Plaisance and trainer Joseph “Bobby” Felks backed off the filly’s training, Felks said, to save her Louisiana allowance conditions for the Fair Grounds meet.
Zany, dominant winner of the Grade 2 Demoiselle, figures to be a short-priced favorite in what is likely to be a small field for the $125,000 Suncoast Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on Saturday.
Zany, a daughter of American Pharoah owned by Mike Repole and trained by Todd Pletcher, won a maiden sprint by 6 1/2 lengths at Gulfstream in November before galloping to an 8 1/2-length victory in the Demoiselle.
Confessional disappointed as the favorite in his 3-year-old debut, but perhaps that five-length loss to Nearly doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
Nearly bounced out of that Jan. 2 allowance win at Gulfstream Park to move near the top of many handicappers’ early Kentucky Derby contenders lists with a dominant 5 3/4-length victory in last Saturday’s Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream. Meanwhile, Confessional will look to jump on the Derby trail himself Saturday when he is scheduled to make his stakes debut in the $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.
ARCADIA, Calif. – There is a carryover of $52,044 in the $2 pick six on Friday at Santa Anita, and a carryover of $43,878 in the $1 Sunset Six, which links the final three races at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita.
The Santa Anita pick six covers the fourth through ninth races on a program that begins at 12:30 p.m. Pacific. The carryover was clinched when Rizzleberry Rose ($14.20) won Sunday’s eighth race. Many tickets were eliminated when Little Tinker Elle ($37.80) won the seventh.
The pool of new money in the pick six should exceed $250,000.
