Sheldon Russell, the leading rider this year at Laurel Park’s summer meet, will be out for 4-6 weeks after he broke his wrist in a gate mishap on Thursday at Delaware Park, Laurel reported.
Russell, who has 20 wins at the current Laurel meet, five more than runner-up Trevor McCarthy, was unseated from his mount in Delaware’s third race on Thursday. He broke his wrist when using his hand to break his fall, according to his agent, Marty Leonard.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Horsemen who have horses in Saturday’s Grade 2 Royal North Stakes must have breathed a sigh of relief when the gray streak Jean Elizabeth wasn’t entered in the six-furlong turf sprint.
Based at Keeneland with trainer Larry Rivelli, the speedy Jean Elizabeth won her last three visits to Woodbine, all in Tapeta stakes. Her last trip across the border was a dominant score in the Grade 3 Whimsical on June 21, which capped an eight-race win streak that began here in the Sept. 21 Sweet Briar Too Stakes.
Prairie Meadows racetrack in Altoona, Iowa, has joined with other racetracks in implementing a policy that will require outside jockeys to quarantine and test negative for coronanvirus before being allowed to ride at the track.
The order is to go into effect with the start of Friday's race card, Prairie Meadows said. Racetracks in Prairie Meadows’s orbit, such as Canterbury Park in Minnesota, Ellis Park in Kentucky, and Indiana Grand, have already put in place identical policies.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – There were no lines of people down Union Avenue in the wee hours of Thursday morning. Picnic tables that would normally be occupied by 7 a.m. were instead piled high on a grassy area outside the gate.
In the box seat area, chairs were stacked individually and, for the most part, televisions were not installed. The Turf Terrace became a makeshift press box for those who preferred to be outside of the regular enclosed press area.
Del Mar has submitted a request to the California Horse Racing Board to race on Monday, July 27, to make up one of the three days of racing lost this weekend after a coronavirus outbreak among jockeys.
Track president Josh Rubinstein told a teleconference hosted by the Thoroughbred Owners of California on Thursday afternoon that Del Mar is hoping to gain rapid approval to race July 27.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Funny Guy, winner of the Commentator Stakes for New York-breds on June 12, is being seriously considered for the Grade 1, $750,000 Whitney here on Aug. 1, trainer John Terranova said Thursday.
The combination of a lack of a New York-bred option going long at this meet and the fact Funny Guy is training so well is what led Terranova to look at the Whitney.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Structor, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner of 2019, was injured in a workout June 20 and won’t race this year, trainer Chad Brown said.
“He got hurt, he needs more time off,” Brown said, not offering any details.
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – With 13 victories here the last two summers, trainer Robertino Diodoro is looking to build on his Saratoga success with a 20-horse string here this meet.
While Diodoro is known as having a far-flung claiming operation – he also is based in Kentucky and at Lone Star, Evangeline, and Canterbury – he has several young horses this meet that he hopes can elevate his stable. He is coming off being the leading trainer at the Oaklawn Park meet.
Thursday at 8:45 a.m., jockey Abel Cedillo was at home near Del Mar, a place he did not expect to be on a weekday morning early in the summer race meeting.
Instead of working horses at the track, Cedillo was in the early days of a quarantine period, having tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday. Cedillo was one of 15 Del Mar-based riders to test positive, the track announced on Wednesday. San Diego County health officials said in a statement released by the track that the affected riders, who were not all named, will be in quarantine for 10 days.
Steve Byk, whose daily “At The Races With Steve Byk” radio show has aired on Sirius XM Satellite radio since 2007, on Wednesday was named by Monmouth Park as the Bill Handleman Memorial Award winner for outstanding coverage of the 2019 Haskell Invitational.
The annual award is named in honor of one of New Jersey’s top sportswriters for nearly three decades for the Asbury Park Press. Handleman died in June 2010 at age 62.
