ALBANY, Calif. - With the first derby of the year only two days away at Golden Gate Fields, now is a great time to have an improving 3-year-old.
Trainer Lonnie Arterburn has two: Lava Man, who will run in Thursday's co-feature, a one-mile, $40,000 starter allowance race on the turf, and Kilgowan, who is nominated for Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 Golden Gate Derby but who is more likely to run in an allowance race Friday, if it fills.
Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream Park in Florida have reached an agreement to swap their racing signals, but the two tracks remain far apart on an agreement to allow Tampa to take bets on other simulcast signals, Tampa's general manager said Tuesday.
The general manager, Peter Berube, said the agreement will allow Tampa to take the Gulfstream signal throughout Gulfstream's 2004 meet, which ends on April 25. Tampa had been blocked from taking the signal since Gulfstream started racing on Jan. 3. The agreement will also allow Gulfstream to offer the Tampa signal to its fans.
Officials of Mountaineer Race Track and representatives of the track's horsemen met on Tuesday afternoon to attempt to resolve an impasse that has shuttered racing and simulcasting at the West Virginia track and casino since the start of the year.
The negotiations were still ongoing as of late Tuesday afternoon, according to representatives of the horsemen and the track. Mountaineer is not scheduled to hold another live racing day until Jan. 19.
NEW ORLEANS - When Spanish Empire joined Steve Asmussen's stable last summer, Asmussen believed he was getting a horse to run at Louisiana Downs. Instead, he might have a horse for the New Orleans Handicap.
Spanish Empire turned in a visually impressive performance winning the $60,000 Louisiana Handicap over Tenpins last Friday, and the mathematicians agreed. Spanish Empire received a 109 Beyer Speed Figure for winning the Louisiana, and as assistant trainer Scott Blasi walked into Asmussen's barn office Tuesday morning, he cautioned Asmussen, "Don't run him back too fast."
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Five wintry weeks had passed since the highest caliber of racing had been conducted in the Eastern sector of the United States. So when Gulfstream Park launched its 2004 meet Saturday, ending the proverbial drought that began when Churchill Downs closed its fall meet and Aqueduct's best horses migrated south, its opening could not have come soon enough for many people.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Read the Footnotes took his first small steps as a 3-year-old on the road to what trainer Rick Violette hopes will eventually become a journey to the Kentucky Derby when he breezed an easy three furlongs in 37.60 seconds at Palm Meadows on Sunday morning.
With regular exercise rider Morna McDowall aboard, Read the Footnotes broke off at the quarter pole and cruised around to the seven-eighths pole before galloping out a half-mile around the turn in 50. It was his first recorded work since he won the Grade 2 Remsen by 3 3/4 lengths Nov. 29.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Nobody knows exactly what will transpire in the the two divisions of an allowance sprint at Gulfstream Park on Wednesday, but if history is a guide, horseplayers will like what they see.
After all, this is the first full week of the Gulfstream meet, where with unlimited futures tend to congregate. If form holds, as it usually does, the splits of an entry-level, seven-furlong allow-ance will produce an eye-popping performance or two, leading most everyone to start thinking about more demanding races such as the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Though there is a $5 million bonus awarded by Oaklawn Park for a horse that sweeps that track's Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby, and then win the Kentucky Derby, that's not the primary reason trainer John Servis is taking Count Fleet Stakes winner to Arkansas.
"We're not going for the bonus," Servis said. "I'm going because I think that's the route that will suit him best."
ARCADIA, Calif. - For trainer Eoin Harty, it was the perfect storm. Harty wanted to run European import in a maiden race on the dirt in her first start in this country, but there was nothing in the condition book for her. An extra race, however, was added by the racing office for Saturday's card. Trouble was, it was on the turf.
"I'm going to enter, because it's supposed to rain," Harty said the day entries were taken. "I hope it rains enough to take the race off the turf, but not enough to where the track is sloppy."