SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - When Bobby Frankel reviews the eight races You has run since arriving in his barn, he points to last year's Grade 2 Adirondack at Saratoga as being her best.
All she's done since is win four Grade 1 races.
In last August's Adirondack, You chased the speedy Cashier's Dream for more than six furlongs before catching her in the final 50 yards to win by a neck. The final time of 1:15.16 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a stakes record.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Last year, only three opponents lined up against defending champion Kona Gold in the $200,000 Bing Crosby Breeders' Cup Handicap. On Saturday, there is no shortage of rivals attempting to dethrone Kona Gold in his attempt for an unprecedented third consecutive win in the Del Mar sprint.
Kona Gold, the Eclipse Award-winning sprinter of 2000, has only one win in five starts since the 2001 Bing Crosby. The losses have created doubts about his prospects as an 8-year-old.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Medaglia d'Oro, the Belmont Stakes runner-up, completed his serious preparations for the Aug. 4 Jim Dandy Stakes by drilling six furlongs in 1:13.85 over Saratoga's main track Thursday morning.
Richard Migliore was aboard for the move, which was the second fastest of four works at the distance. Migliore was aboard for Medaglia d'Oro's last major move before the Belmont Stakes, and compared this work favorably to that.
"Very similar, very good," Migliore said. "Maybe a touch better."
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Whywhywhy proved Thursday that he is more than just a stablemate of Zavata.
Overcoming a slow start, Whywhywhy rallied from last to win the Grade 2, $150,000 Sanford Stakes by 2 3/4 lengths. Wildcat Heir, the 8-5 favorite, nosed out longshot Spite the Devil for second.
It was the second straight stakes win for Whywhywhy, a son of Mr. Greeley trained by Patrick Biancone and owned by Biancone and Fabien Ouaki. Biancone has won all three juvenile colt stakes run in New York this year.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - In an effort to improve the status of the Diana Handicap, the New York Racing Association moved the race from the last weekend of the Saratoga meet to the first.
On paper, it looks as though the date switch helped. The 10 horses entered in the $500,000 Diana have combined to win 22 stakes, including this year's New York, Locust Grove, Just a Game, Buena Vista, and Suwanee River handicaps.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Take a good look at Colorful Tour in Saturday's Round Table Stakes - if you can find him.
The diminutive Colorful Tour surely will be the smallest horse in the Round Table, but he is the best Illinois-bred 3-year-old in training right now.
Colorful Tour has won 5 of 8 lifetime starts, but on dirt he has won 5 of 6 with a second-place finish. He has beaten the best horses of his generation in the major statebred stakes, winning the Jim Edgar Futurity last winter, the Land of Lincoln this March and the Springfield here June 22 in his last race.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Challengers on Saturday in the Modesty Handicap can only hope the England's Legend who shows up at Arlington this year isn't the same one who raced here last summer.
If she regains last year's form, England's Legend should win the Modesty comfortably and go on to defend her title a month from now in the Grade 1 Beverly D., which she won last summer by almost eight lengths.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Trainer Craig Lewis had the perfect start on Wednesday's opening day at Del Mar, winning two races with as many starters. By Thursday morning, he was laying the groundwork for his first assault on the meeting's top race - the $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 25.
The barn's hope for that race is Hot Market, who starts in a $70,000 allowance race over a mile on Saturday. An impressive win would give Lewis and owners John Harris and Per Antonsen an excuse to try the Pacific Classic, run over 1 1/4 miles.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Trainer Richard Paulus purchased Sea of Tranquility for $6,500 at the Ocala April 2-year-old sales four years ago. In 50 career starts, the now 6-year-old Sea of Tranquility has earned a little more than $550,000. It may be his 51st start on Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Salvator Mile at Monmouth, though, that proves to be his most important career race.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Like a Hero hooked Came Home in the Grade 2 Swaps at Hollywood Park on July 14 and finished second, but he will have the opportunity to turn the tables in the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Aug. 4.
With the prospective field reduced to three because of the defections of War Emblem and Sunday Break, trainer Beau Greely began to consider the Haskell seriously on Wednesday. One day later, he confirmed that Like a Hero, who ran seventh in the Belmont Stakes, would be coming for the Haskell.