Jolie Olimpica, a four-time stakes winner in Brazil and California, will be moved to Woodbine Racecourse in Canada this spring where she can be treated with the anti-bleeder medication Lasix in stakes.
Trainer Richard Mandella said Jolie Olimpica bled in a recent start. Horses have not been allowed to be treated with Lasix in open stakes in California since the beginning of the year, according to a rule adopted by the California Horse Racing Board.
Santa Anita will run an abbreviated schedule in mid-April, with no racing on the Fridays of April 9 and 16, no turf racing on the weekend of April 10-11, and limited turf racing on the weekend of April 17-18.
The track has raced primarily on a three-day-a-week schedule in recent months. The revised calendar is designed to give the turf course a mid-season rest. The season began Dec. 26 and ends June 20.
Richard Grunder, the track announcer at Tampa Bay Downs in Florida since 1984, will retire from the announcer’s booth at the end of Tampa’s meet on May 2 but will work as a jockey agent in Minnesota, the track said on Friday.
Grunder, 68, who has called more than 37,000 races at Tampa in a career that began in 1973, said in a release from the track that he has decided to retire from announcing to spend more time with his family.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - By My Standards, who has earned $1.8 million, is scheduled to launch his 5-year-old season in the $400,000 Oaklawn Mile, trainer Bret Calhoun said on Thursday. The race is one of four stakes on the Arkansas Derby Day card April 10 at Oaklawn Park.
Lockdowns at Maryland tracks due to an outbreak of equine herpesvirus among the state’s Thoroughbred population has created ripple effects throughout the region, with Charles Town Races in West Virginia canceling its Saturday card due to a shortage of entries and Laurel delaying one of its stakes-rich programs.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The 11-time stakes-winning New York-bred Mr. Buff is 0 for 6 in graded stakes. If he is ever going to win one, though, it seems Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Excelsior Stakes would be it. The race is run at 1 1/8 miles at Aqueduct, conditions under which Mr. Buff has won seven times with one second from eight career starts. Five of those victories have come in stakes – three runnings of the Jazil and two of the Alex M. Robb.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After finishing second to Greatest Honour in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth going 1 1/16 miles, Drain the Clock will turn back to one turn and seven furlongs in Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Bay Shore Stakes for 3-year-olds.
Prior to the Fountain of Youth, Drain the Clock had gone 4 for 4 in one-turn races, including a 6 1/4-length victory in the Grade 3 Swale.
Drain the Clock is part of a five-horse Bay Shore field that lost a significant player when Freedom Fighter was not entered due to a quarter crack, per trainer Bob Baffert.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The distance is perhaps farther than he wants to run and the competition is definitely steeper than he’s faced to date, but Chateau is just doing too well not to give Saturday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Carter Handicap a chance.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – By virtue of his victory in the Gotham Stakes four weeks ago, Weyburn earned enough qualifying points to secure his spot in the Kentucky Derby on May 1. His connections, however, do not necessarily have a case of Derby fever.
