ARCADIA, Calif. - It has been a disappointing season, but the recent success of Buckland Manor has revived 2003 for prominent owners Trudy McCaffery and John Toffan and trainer Paco Gonzalez.
Buckland Manor won his second consecutive allowance race on turf Thursday, setting up a possible start in the $600,000 Hollywood Derby at Hollywood Park on Nov. 30.
STICKNEY, Ill. - Trainer Chris Block has sent out a slew of turf winners at the Hawthorne meet, and in Hawthorne's featured ninth race Sunday he has put Chilling Effect in a spot to win another.
Chilling Effect is one of 12 horses entered in a one-mile, third-level allowance race with a $35,000 claiming option. A few horses here sport form on the upswing, but Chilling Effect has won three out of her last five starts, and beat a solid field of second-level allowance horses in her last race.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Blonde Executive, arguably the best 2-year-old filly at Woodbine, shoots for her fourth straight victory Sunday in the $159,900 Fanfreluche Stakes, a six-furlong dash for Canadian-breds.
Blonde Executive graduated impressively in her third start, beating My Vintage Port, who subsequently captured both the Muskoka and Princess Elizabeth Stakes.
GROVE CITY, Ohio - Oh So Easy, an upset winner of the Best of Ohio Distaff Championship in her last start, leads a field of six Ohio-bred fillies and mares in Sunday's Bobbie Bricker Memorial Handicap at Beulah Park.
Oh So Easy and defending champion Lady Cherie are the 120-pound highweights in the $40,000 Bricker.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - With just over a month to go in the Hastings meet, the trainer's race has suddenly heated up. A few weeks ago it looked like Dino Condilenios had a lock on his first training title, but a late surge by perennial leading trainer Harold Barroby has turned the trainer's race into a horse race. Condilenios has won 30 races, four more than Barroby, and he thinks he has the ammo to hold on to the top spot.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Trainer Don Winfree's initial inclination was to run Tenpins against some of the world's top older horses in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita. But instead of being a longshot for a $4 million purse, Tenpins has settled for being the heavy favorite in Saturday's $150,000 Fayette, a Grade 3 race he captured last year on Breeders' Cup Day.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Spring Meadow will try to win consecutive stakes for the first time in her career in Saturday's $100,000 Very Subtle Handicap at Santa Anita.
Last month, Spring Meadow won the Bangles and Beads Handicap at Fairplex Park in a race that trainer Bob Hess Jr. described as "a paid workout."
The six-furlong Very Subtle will be more difficult, but Hess insists Spring Meadow is ready in an attempt to win her fifth career stakes.
"She's excellent right now," he said.
The Very Subtle is run as Saturday's first race, prior to the Breeders' Cup.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Shortly after the network television cameras are turned off and the casual fans start heading for the exits, Santa Anita is treating die-hard racegoers to one more stakes after Saturday's Breeders' Cup program.
The $150,000 Seabiscuit Handicap over 1 1/16 miles is the 11th race on a 12-race program, and a puzzle for bettors.
Redattore, the winner of the 2002 San Antonio Handicap, is the 123-pound highweight. He will be trying to end a two-race losing streak and win his third major stakes of the year.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Seven horses will try to upset Shine Again in Saturday's Grade 2 First Flight Handicap at Belmont Park, but they will have history stacked against them.
Shine Again, a 6-year-old mare trained by Allen Jerkens, has won the First Flight the past two years, taking advantage of the race's distance - she is 4 for 5 at seven furlongs, with one second - and her affinity for Belmont Park, where she has yet to finish out of the money in 15 starts.