LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A handful of trainers who otherwise would have been back home racing at Woodbine by this time of year have sent strings to Kentucky to compete at the Churchill Downs spring meet, including Norm McKnight, who already has sent out two winners from three starts.
“We’ve been waiting for something good to happen back home, and we keep getting pushed back,” McKnight said Monday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Grade 2 winner Bodhicitta is nearing her 2021 debut. Sunday at Santa Anita, Bodhicitta worked five furlongs on the infield training track in 1:00.40.
“We’re looking for a big campaign in the summer,” trainer Richard Baltas said.
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ARCADIA, Calif. – Hall of Fame jockey Victor Espinoza switched agents over the weekend, ending an eight-year partnership with Brian Beach and hiring Tom Knust.
Knust said Sunday that he has started working on behalf of Espinoza and will continue to represent Abel Cedillo.
In an interview Sunday, Espinoza said he parted ways with Beach in order to have an agent based at Santa Anita. Beach and his wife, Lotta, have purchased a home in Idaho and are spending a majority of their time away from California.
“I decided to ask somebody else,” Espinoza said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Street Art, a bargain purchase for $37,000 as a yearling, won his debut in a maiden special weight race for 2-year-olds at 4 1/2 furlongs on Sunday at Santa Anita.
Ridden by Kent Desormeaux for his brother Keith, Street Art took the lead shortly after the start and was never bothered by his four rivals, pulling away by four lengths. Sent off favored, Street Art paid $5.40 and was timed in 52.05 seconds.
“He’s fast,” Kent Desormeaux said. “We were high on him. He’s done well with the other good ones in the mornings, so that’s a good sign.”
As he headed back to his Churchill Downs barn on Monday morning following a workout by Midnight Bourbon for the Preakness Stakes, to be run Saturday at Pimlico, trainer Steve Asmussen said he began to muse to himself over “what a crazy lot we are.”
“We walked over for the Derby thinking we were going to win, it didn’t work out how we expected – ouch – and today we’re, ‘Yay, we’re going to win the Preakness,’ ” he said.
Midnight Bourbon was sixth in the Kentucky Derby after losing valuable early position. “It just wasn’t meant to be,” Asmussen said.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Mischevious Alex and Drain the Clock, locally based stars who will be heading to New York in several weeks, turned in works here Sunday. Mischevious Alex breezed five furlongs in 1:02.15, Drain the Clock a half-mile in 48.79.
Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. had to alter his original plan for the two after his stakes winner Chance It stumbled and lost his rider leaving the starting gate for a scheduled work.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Firenze Fire’s victory in Saturday’s Grade 3 Runhappy at Belmont Park has been well documented, as well it should be, with the veteran winning the 12th stakes of his career while returning to action for the first time since his second-place finish in the Grade 3 Mr. Prospector here nearly five months earlier.
The first-time starter LS Jacks Back won a division of the Heritage Place Futurity time trials at Remington Park on Friday to set the fastest qualifying time for the $1,244,980 final on May 29.
Even with an impressive three-length win in a 350-yard trial in 17.86 seconds, LS Jacks Back may not be favored later this month. Political Rose won a division of the trials on Saturday in 17.95 seconds by 2 3/4 lengths for her second win in three starts, and could be the top choice in the richest race of the track’s winter-spring Quarter Horse meeting.
Medina Spirit, who led from start to finish in the Kentucky Derby on May 1 to post a hard-fought half-length victory, tested positive for betamethasone, a regulated anti-inflammatory, after the race, according to his trainer, Bob Baffert, who acknowledged the test result Sunday morning during a press conference on the backside of Churchill Downs.
Firenze Fire, winner of Saturday’s Grade 3 Runhappy Stakes, will likely make his next start in the Grade 2, $300,000 True North Stakes on June 4, trainer Kelly Breen said.
“The True North looks like the ideal spot off what we saw yesterday,” Breen said Sunday morning.
Firenze Fire, coming off a five-month layoff, was an easy 3 1/4-length winner of the Runhappy, for which he earned a 102 Beyer Speed Figure.
The year-end goal for Firenze Fire is the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar in November. Firenze Fire finished third in last year’s Sprint.
