LEAVING THEM IN THE DUST
Conrad colt sizzles in dirt workout in front of captive audience..
The PRINCE OF WALES – edition 81 – is a week from Tuesday, post time 7:40 p.m., and a possible field of 8 is getting the final works in.
SIR DUDLEY DIGGES worked 5 furlongs in 1:03 at Churchill Downs this morning preparing for next week’s race. The Plate winner is seeking to become the first Plate then Wales winner since Wando.
AMIS GIZMO, the possible favourite again (2nd in the Plate as favourite) worked this morning (Tuesday) in 1:00 breezing at Fort Erie. He was sharp as a tack when we visited him on Sunday morning.
LEAVEM IN MALIBU, closing 4th in the Plate, had a really fast workout time on the training dirt at Woodbine when getting past the filly Valentine’s Pearl (and check out who is watching the work form the infield at seconds in the video).
LEO FROM HEAVEN, owned by Martin and Estelle Clunies, is an improving fellow who will start for trainer Mark Frostad. SIR DUDDLEY DIGGES has run well on dirt, so has ALL ON RED.
NIIGON’S EDGE, another new shooter, is going for the red-hot Chiefswood Stable.
It should be a very intriguing 1 3/16 miles.
SMILES FOR MILEY
Like most people watching the Woodbine races on Sunday, when the field broke from the gate in the Grade 3 Ontario Matron, it was hard to believe that 25 to 1 shot Midnight Miley could have opened some 5 lengths on the field while going 24.99 and 48.99 through the stretch and into the backstretch going just 1 1/16 miles.
The 4yo Midnight Lute filly was left unchallenged and won easily over invader Miss Chatelaine (who had only raced on grass and was by Pulpit) and a troubled Moon Rainbow, who was squeezed at the start. It was a brilliant ride by Rafael Hernandez who has recently moved to Ontario to ride at Woodbine.
Miley came to Woodbine last year from Billy Koch’s Little Red Feather Syndicate and she took to the local scene in not time under the care of trainer Julia Carey. This was the mare’s 2nd race of the season.
This and that from the weekend…
ALBERTA – READY FOR THE CANADIAN DERBY!
READY INTAGLIO – $1,000 purchase is fave for Canadian Derby’
Trainer Greg Tracy leads all conditioners in Canada
While the bargain purchase READY INTAGLIO (In – tah – lee o , it is a printing term) stormed to the lead in the Count Lathum Stakes at Northlands on Saturday, Canada’s leading trainer GREG TRACY won 4 stakes races on the card and is the long gone leader by wins in the country at 52.
CURTIS STOCK FEATURE
Who says you have to spend a lot of money to get a real good race horse?
The early favourite for the Aug. 20 $150,000 Canadian Derby is Ready Intaglio – a horse that owner Robbin Marten’s husband, Eurico, purchased for just $1,000.
Saturday afternoon at Northlands Ready Intaglio rubber-stamped his Derby aspirations with another solid, come-from-behind victory in the $50,000 Count Lathum Handicap.
“I’ve trained a lot of good horses and this is one son of a gun with one really big engine,” said Jim Meyaard, trainer Amber Meyaard’s husband.
“And to think Eurico bought him for just $1,000 is absolutely amazing. The horse was consigned to the Kenneland, Kentucky yearling sale and he went through the ring with no sale. Eurico chased down the previous owner, gave the guy a $1,000 cheque and bought himself a Derby contender.”
Eurico Martens, who trains at Winnipeg’s Assiniboia Downs racetrack, asked the Meyaards if they would consider training Ready Intaglio in Edmonton with the idea that the three-year-old might just be a Derby contender.
Might? That’s like saying Nolan Ryan had a pretty good fastball or that Usain Bolt has a little bit of speed.
Make no doubt about it Ready Intaglio is the real deal. Read more at:
http://thehorses.com/news/thoroughbred/item/1543-ready-intaglio-surprises-at-the-count-latham
READY INTAGLIO, by Indygo Shiner, is ready for the Canadian Derby – HORSE RACING ALBERTA PHOTO
NEW TV SHOW WILL BROADCAST SARATOGA
So much has changed in a relatively short amount of time when it comes to media and the dissemination of content. From Facebook to Twitter to Snapchat and Periscope, there’s no shortage of new ways to communicate and deliver a message. Yet, even in an ever-changing digital era, there’s still a highly reliable way to reach and entertain a large audience through a medium that has roots dating back to the days when Dwight David Eisenhower was President.
Television audiences may be shrinking from its heydays, but in terms of delivering content to massive amounts of people it remains as reliable an outlet as ever – a point that apparently resonates quite loudly with the management of the New York Racing Association (NYRA).
When historic Saratoga Race Course opens for its 148th season on Friday, the curtain will also go up on something new and completely unprecedented in the centuries-old sport.
In May, NYRA first raised the bar when it launched Belmont Park Live, a two-hour television program filled with coverage of Belmont Park racing airing on MSG+, a regional sports network in New York.
Though the show might be produced in-house, NYRA has spared no expense in creating a high-quality program that can stand tall alongside national network broadcasts of horse racing – or professional sports such as the National Football League or Major League Baseball.
Available in 65 million homes
Now, with the shift to the Spa, NYRA will take its investment in television to even greater heights with the debut of Saratoga Live, an expanded 2 ½-hour program…read more
SARATOGA!
Featuring 69 stakes worth a record $18.725 million, anchored by the Grade 1, $1.25 million Whitney on August 6 and the 147th edition of the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers on August 27, live thoroughbred racing moves to Saratoga Race Course on Friday, July 22 for the 40-day summer meet packed with exciting racing action and a variety of special events designed for fans of all ages.
First post time is 1 p.m. on Friday, with gates opening at 11 a.m. Opening Day will kick off with a pair of graded stakes: the Grade 3, $150,000 Schuylerville for 2-year-old fillies and the Grade 3, $200,000 Lake George for 3-year-old turf fillies as well as a $150,000 Guaranteed Pick 6.
Saturday highlights include the Grade 3, $150,000 Sanford for juveniles and the first Grade 1 of the meet, the $500,000 Diana for turf fillies and mares, while Sunday marks the appearance of reigning Juvenile Filly Eclipse champion Songbird in the Grade 1, $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks for 3-year-old fillies.
“We are very fortunate to have Songbird running on Opening Weekend,” said Martin Panza, NYRA’s Senior Vice President of Racing Operations. “The following weekend is the [Grade 2, $600,000] Jim Dandy, in which we are likely to see the Belmont winner, August 13, and the Preakness winner, Exaggerator. Looking beyond that, nearly every weekend there will be a champion or a star running, and that’s what Saratoga is all about.”
Vying for the H. Allen Jerkens training title once again will be Todd Pletcher, who has won six straight and 12 total titles, and Mechanicville, N.Y. native Chad Brown, runner-up each year since 2011. Brown, the leading trainer on the New York Racing Association circuit in 2015, appears poised to turn the tables on his seven-time Eclipse Award winning rival, having just won his first Belmont spring/summer training title with 38 winners to Pletcher’s 25.
New faces among trainers include Tom Amoss, who will also be serving as a racing analyst on Saratoga Live, Larry Rivelli from Arlington Park and A.C. Avila from California.
Irad Ortiz, Jr. will be defending his first Angel Cordero, Jr. riding championship against his younger brother, Jose, leading jockey at the just-concluded Belmont Park spring/summer meet, and three-time Eclipse Award winner Javier Castellano, who last year rode Keen Ice to upset Triple Crown champion American Pharoah and win a record fifth Travers. New to the jockey colony this year will be the French-born Florent Geroux, most recently seen at Belmont Park winning the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Oaks aboard Catch a Glimpse.
http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-sports/article/Trainer-Todd-Pletcher-calls-himself-Saratoga-8385480.php
