Churchill Downs has begun selling a limited number of tickets for its upcoming fall meet that begins in late October, according to an official with the company.
The tickets are being made available through the track’s website and at internet brokerage sites, according to Darren Rogers, the track’s vice president of communications. Churchill has not yet allowed spectators on-track this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, including at its re-scheduled Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Art Collector is back in training following a disappointing run in the Preakness as trainer Tommy Drury ponders a suitable next spot for a colt who incurred his first defeat as a 3-year-old when finishing fourth last Saturday in the final leg of the 2020 Triple Crown.
Drury said the Nov. 7 Breeders’ Cup Classic or BC Dirt Mile are the logical choices for a next race, although he also will consider waiting for the Nov. 27 Clark at Churchill Downs, depending on how the colt trains in the coming days and weeks.
Big Runnuer, who won his graded stakes debut in the Grade 2 Eddie D Stakes on Sept. 25 at Santa Anita, worked a half-mile in 49 seconds on Thursday in preparation for an expected start in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on Nov. 7 at Keeneland.
The first weekend of October was a true homecoming for jockey Tyler Baze. Baze rode three winners at Santa Anita on his second weekend of riding in California after spending most of the year based in the Midwest.
More importantly, his wife and three children returned to their home near the racetrack after spending nearly a month with family in Southern California because of a massive wildfire in the mountains near Santa Anita. The children range in age from 3 to 6.
It was family that lured Baze back to California last month.
ELMONT, N.Y. – As he closes in on becoming just the eighth Thoroughbred trainer to reach the 5,000-win plateau, Todd Pletcher says the milestone will conjure memories of victories large and small.
In New York, where he has been based for 25 years, Pletcher has won virtually every big race offered on this circuit.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Mr. Big News, third in the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby, came out of his distant seventh in the Preakness last Saturday in great shape and could make his next start in an undercard stakes on Breeders’ Cup weekend (Nov. 6-7) at Keeneland, trainer Bret Calhoun said.
“We might give him a little rest, or we might look at trying the turf in the Bryan Station,” a 1 1/8-mile turf race for 3-year-olds on Nov. 6, Calhoun said. All nine prior starts for Mr. Big News, a Giant’s Causeway colt, have come over dirt.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Magic Attitude, a dazzling winner as the favorite in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks in her stateside debut last month, heads a field of nine 3-year-old turf fillies in the sixth and final Grade 1 race of the Keeneland fall meet, the 37th running of the $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on Saturday.
Magic Attitude arrived here Tuesday following an overnight van ride from her base at the Fair Hill Training Center in northern Maryland. Arnaud Delacour trains the Galileo filly for the Lael Stables of Roy and Gretchen Jackson of Barbaro fame.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Rocco O’Connor and Jake Romans have been best buds since a very young age. Prior to attending the same Louisville high school together, they grew up as tots on the racetracks of Kentucky, mostly at Churchill Downs, where their fathers trained horses.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Leading trainer Mark Casse has been red-hot at Woodbine, and he will be well represented in stakes here in the coming weeks and at the Breeders’ Cup in November at Keeneland.
Casse has a host of Breeders’ Cup runners coming out of Woodbine, most notably Gretzky the Great for the Juvenile Turf, March to the Arch for the Mile, and War of Will for the Dirt Mile.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The $13 million stakes schedule for the upcoming 2020-21 Gulfstream Park Championship meet has been released, with the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational, $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf, and $800,000 Florida Derby topping the list of 75 stakes to be offered during the course of the session that begins Dec. 2.
