HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Mike Shanley is a Villanova University graduate and a huge fan of the school’s basketball program, but pardon the 74-year-old retired attorney if he is preoccupied when the Wildcats face heavily favored Baylor in the NCAA tournament late Saturday afternoon.
“As much as I love the school and Villanova basketball, both of my eyes are going to be focused on that racetrack,” Shanley said with a chuckle this week from Ocean Ridge, Fla.
Chris Griffin, the race caller at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston, has accepted a position as the full-time track announcer for Parx Racing in Bensalem, Penn., the track announced on Wednesday.
Griffin, who got his start in car racing, will take over for Keith Jones, who called the races at Parx (which was formerly called Philadelphia Park) for 34 years before announcing his retirement last December. Parx races nearly year round, so Griffin will relocate to Pennsylvania.
Attendance at this year’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore in May will be limited to 10,000 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the track’s parent company and local government officials said Tuesday.
The Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, has typically drawn approximately 130,000 to the Baltimore track during the last decade. The 10,000 attendees allowed this year will be required to maintain social-distancing protocols, the track said.
Jockeys, particularly those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, should find it easier to go about their business in New York this spring.
The New York Racing Association on Tuesday released jockey protocols for the 11-day Aqueduct spring meet and the restrictions have been adjusted some.
Jockeys based out of town who want to ride at the Aqueduct meet (April 1 through 18) must provide one negative COVID-19 PCR test taken in New York within 48 hours of the day they want to ride. Previously, two negative tests in five-days were required to ride in New York.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Big Lake, who was third in the Grade 2, $1 million Rebel in his last start March 13 at Oaklawn Park, emerged from the race with an injury and will be sidelined indefinitely, trainer Steve Asmussen said Tuesday.
Asmussen said Big Lake came out of the Rebel with a condylar fracture in one of his legs.
Big Lake had won a maiden special weight and a first-level allowance, both at Fair Grounds, prior to making his stakes debut in the Rebel. For his third-place finish he earned 10 points for the Kentucky Derby.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Medina Spirit and Rock Your World both were scheduled to take on Life Is Good in the Grade 1 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby on April 3. Now with Life Is Good out of the race, and the win chances of both significantly upgraded, they worked Monday at Santa Anita in preparation for the West’s final prep for the May 1 Kentucky Derby.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Leading rider Flavien Prat has been booked to ride Mucho Unusual in Saturday’s Grade 3 Santa Ana Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/4 miles on turf at Santa Anita.
Mucho Unusual, trained by Tim Yakteen for George Krikorian, won the Grade 1 Rodeo Drive Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on turf last September, and in November was 12th of 14 in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Keeneland when ridden by Prat.
At the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, Mucho Unusual has had three different riders in as many races.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Hit the Road won his first Grade 1 in the $400,000 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita on March 6 for his fourth career stakes win, all in Southern California.
The 4-year-old colt may race outside of the state for the first time in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile on turf at Keeneland on April 9.
Trainer Dan Blacker said on Sunday that he is finalizing a spring plan for Hit the Road, a winner of three consecutive stakes. The Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile on turf at Santa Anita on May 31 is a long-range goal.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Mark Casse might already be mixing his metaphors when it comes to Soup and Sandwich, the unbeaten gray colt he will saddle Saturday at Gulfstream Park for the 69th Florida Derby.
“This is going to be a different kettle of fish,” Casse said early this week from his Ocala base.
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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Trainer Peter Miller said Get Her Number has returned to Southern California following a troubled seventh-place finish in the Grade 2, $1 million Rebel on March 13 at Oaklawn. The start was the horse’s first since winning the Grade 1 American Pharoah last September at Santa Anita.
“He came out of it good,” Miller said. “He got banged up a little bit when a horse came out into him at the eighth pole – got a cut on his front ankle, which we’re having to doctor. Hopefully, it won’t keep him out of any races.”
