FORT ERIE, Ontario - Callendars, the lone 3-year-old in a field of seven, is the horse to beat in the $60,000 Golden Horseshoe Stakes on Tuesday at Fort Erie. The seven-furlong turf race is for Canadian-foaled fillies and mares who have started at least twice at the current meeting.
Owned by Laura and Eugene Melnyk, and trained by Phil England, Callendars has shipped here from Woodbine three times. Each time she has gone back a winner. In all three wins she went wire to wire.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Arbiter, who set a course record for 1 3/8 miles on turf in an allowance race on July 25, will make his stakes debut against California's top older horses in the
$1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 25.
Trainer Craig Lewis had considered the Del Mar Handicap on turf on Sept. 1 for Arbiter, but has opted for the richest race of this meeting. The Pacific Classic is expected to draw top 3-year-olds War Emblem and Came Home, as well as older horses Bonus Pack, Euchre, Grey Memo, Kela, Momentum, and Sky Jack.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - There are some who would suggest this is not a good time for an assistant trainer to go out on his own, but those people do not know Sergio Ledezma well.
Horse inventory is down. Worker's comp costs are skyrocketing. More owners seem to be getting out of the game than into it.
Ledezma weighed those factors into his decision late last year to go out on his own after working as Len Shoemaker's assistant for 18 years.
DEL MAR, Calif. - When trainer Laura de Seroux describes Azeri as a "dream horse," it is pointless to debate her analysis. After all, it is accurate.
Azeri soared to the head of her class this spring by winning four straight Grade 1's and resumes her march toward the Breeders' Cup Distaff when she runs Sunday at Del Mar. It is a racetrack she had not seen until this week, but Azeri offered no hesitation when she got her first look at it Thursday morning.
"She stepped on the racetrack, looked it over, and then she owned it," de Seroux said.
DEL MAR, Calif. - At a time when he is thinking of campaigning his major stakes winners closer to home, trainer Darrell Vienna has been searching the globe for his next crop of top-class runners.
On Friday, Vienna said that the multiple stakes winner Janet and the sprint star Disturbingthepeace are unlikely to travel to Arlington Park this month and may make another start at Del Mar.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Sunday's $50,000-added Mid-Peninsula Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at the Bay Meadows Fair is not usually a race that the winner of a $125,000 stakes would consider. But trainer James K. Chapman believes it's a perfect spot for Humorous Lady.
Third in her debut at Hollywood Park, Humorous Lady graduated by a neck for a $40,000 claiming price in her second start. In her last start on July 26, she won the $125,000 CTBA Stakes by a nose at Del Mar.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Orientate will go off a deserving favorite in Sunday's $200,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap at Saratoga, but it is the talented and untested Beau's Town that could play the spoiler in the Grade 2 sprint.
Beau's Town, a son of Beau Genius, has six wins and two seconds from eight starts, but makes his graded stakes debut in the six-furlong Vanderbilt. He is making his first start for Lynn Whiting, who took over the training of the colt in the middle of July shortly after Robert Beck bought into the horse owned primarily by David Hulkewicz.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Josie Carroll will send out a pair of promising unbeaten 2-year-old fillies, Handpainted and Buffalo Jump, in Sunday's $139,625 Ontario Debutante Stakes at Woodbine.
The six-furlong race has also lured New York invader Ella Bella, who will likely be among the favorites in the nine-horse field.
Handpainted has gotten the job done in both her races with consummate ease. A blue-blooded daughter of A.P. Indy and stakes winner Daijin, Handpainted won a key maiden special by 3 1/4 lengths when she debuted on May 18.
EDMONTON, Alberta--Rancour will resume defense of his title as the Alberta's champion older horse in Friday's $40,000 Westerner Handicap at Northlands Park, and his path will be made easier by the absence of multi-stakes winner Sixthirtyjoe.
Even though Sixthirtyjoe handily won the 1 1/16-mile Klondike, his owner-trainer-breeder Deanne Davies will avoid longer tests such as the 1 5/16-mile Westerner and the 1 3/8-mile Speed to Spare here Sept. 7.
