Saratoga News

Opening day is next Thursday July 14th. 

James O'Brien, son of Aidan O'Brien, has 6 stalls with a couple of 2 year olds who will be making their 1st tries at the SPA. His career has been limited to 15 starts of which he's won 3. He also has one running Saturday @ Belmont in Agartha.

1,6 million has been added to the purse structure for the coming meet. They will be dark on Monday & Tuesday each week.

It will be interesting who gets the majority of mounts for trainer Brad Cox with Florent Geroux spending the summer in Cali.

Please add anything to this thread that you find interesting.

The $135,000 Wilton Stakes, the first race to be run out of the rebuilt Wilson Chute at Saratoga, drew a field of nine 3-year-old fillies for Thursday’s opening-day card.

There are still some logistics to work out over the placement of the starting gate for the Wilson Chute, as jockeys have expressed safety concerns to the stewards and management over the number of horses permitted to run in those one-mile races. There was some discrepancy whether the fields for races that start in the chute should be limited to eight or 10 starters. For now, the limit is 10 horses.

The concern is that horses who would break from the inside posts would be running straight toward the rail entering the first turn. 2 year old races should be interesting with this new chute and we should see plenty of these races.

While Pletcher, Asmussen, and Chad Brown figure to attract most of the attention with their high-priced, powerful-pedigreed 2-year-olds, there are several other trainers to pay attention in that division this summer.

Chief among them are Christophe Clement and Shug McGaughey, both of whom seem to have increased their quantity and quality of 2-year-olds over previous years.

Last summer, Clement had his best Saratoga meet with juveniles, winning 7 races from 21 starters. One of those wins came with Pizza Bianca, who won her debut at Saratoga and capped the year with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

“If you look at maiden special weight races in New York, I don’t get the $500,000, $600,000 horses like some other guys do, and we’ve been able to compete,” Clement said. “I still win.”

Among the colts Clement hopes to start this summer at Saratoga are Acoustic Ave (Maclean’s Music), American Hustle (American Pharoah), Thutmose (War Front), and perhaps Chulligan, an $825,000 New York-bred son of Justify who is a half-brother to Grade 3 winner Coinage. Big Wicks (Medaglia d’Oro) is an expensive colt out of the seven-time stakes winner Leigh Court.

Among fillies, Clement has high hopes for a half-sister to Gotham winner Morello named Ella Frances (Cairo Prince), Mademoisellejackie (American Pharoah), Silver Skillet (Liam’s Map), Smokie Eyes (Nyquist), and Souffle (Candyride).

Shug McGaughey has gone just 11 for 115 with juveniles at Saratoga the past 13 summers. Now, having taken on more clients than just the Phippses and Stuart Janney, McGaughey has some high-priced juveniles that he figures to unveil this summer.

Perform (Good Magic) was a solid second on debut on July 3 at Belmont Park and figures to be better from the experience. McGaughey has colts General Jim, an $850,000 son of Into Mischief; Limits of Power, a $575,000 son of Good Magic who is a half-brother to Grade 1 winner Yaupon; Battle of Normandy, a $500,000 son of City of Light; Game Change, a $500,000 son of Candy Ride; Spinzar, a $400,000 son of Tapit; and Ohana Honor, a $430,000 son of Honor Code. He also has homebreds Capture the Flag (Quality Road) and Full Coverage (Into Mischief).

Evergrande, a $1.1 million daughter of Uncle Mo, tops McGaughey’s list of fillies, which includes Candle (City of Light) and Self Confident (Into Mischief).

As usual, it will be tough to have more success with 2-year-olds than Todd Pletcher, who has won at least 10 baby races 10 of the last 12 years in Saratoga. Forte (Violence) is headed to Saturday’s Grade 3 Sanford off a dominant maiden score on May 27.

Among the colts Pletcher looks to get started at Saratoga are Bat Flip (Good Magic); Mindtap (Tapit), a half to three-time Grade 1 winner Curalina; an unnamed Into Mischief colt out of Grade 1 Test winner Paola Queen who sold for $2.6 million at Saratoga in 2021; an unnamed Violence colt who is a half-brother to Standard Deviation; Miracle Mike (Goldencents), second to Andiamo A Firenze on debut; and an unnamed Flatter colt who is a half-brother to A Mo Reay.

Among Pletcher’s fillies to watch for are Bisset (Quality Road), second on debut at Monmouth; Chocolate Gelato (Practical Joke), entered on Thursday’s opening-day card; Invest Wisely (Justify out of Grade 1 winner Emma’s Encore); Julia Shining, a full sister to champion Malathaat; and Wand (Good Magic).

Trainer Chad Brown can rival Pletcher with his juvenile pedigrees, but is usually later getting them started.

Among his colts to look for are a $1 million son of Into Mischief named Phelpsy, Activist Investing (Kingman), Army Times (Into Mischief), Out of Bounds (Dubawi), an unnamed First Samurai colt out of Destiny Unbound, and an unnamed City of Light colt out of Taglia.

Brown’s fillies include Startup Mentality (Kingman), an unnamed Into Mischief filly out of Vertical Vision, Accede (Into Mischief), Disruption (Practical Joke), Free Look (Tapit), and Pink Hue (Mendelssohn).

Asmussen won eight juvenile races at two of the last three meets. He won four maiden 2-year-old races at Churchill Downs, with his most impressive winner being Gulfport (Uncle Mo), dominant victor of the Bashford Manor on July 3. Among those who didn’t win that figure to race at the Spa are the colts Disarm (Gun Runner), Easy Big Boy (Cloud Computing), second to the monster that is Damon’s Mound, and Run Poppy (Runhappy), and the fillies Just an Angel (Justify) and Stunningly (Gun Runner). Asmussen plans to run Roman Giant in Saturday’s Sanford.

Casse has enjoyed terrific success this year with his 2-year-olds and has three entered in Thursday’s Schuylerville. He said Janis Joplin may scratch and run in a maiden race. Boppy O, a half-brother to Pappacap, is slated to run in Saturday’s Sanford.

Among the maidens Casse looks to run at Saratoga are Bring Theband Home (Into Mischief), second on debut at Gulfstream Park, and the New York-bred Conman (Constitution), who has been working well at Belmont.

Danny Gargan said his stable has shifted its focus from claimers to young horses and believes he has a talented group of juveniles. Among the colts he’s looking to get started later in the meet are Champions Dream (Justify), Torigo (Munnings), America’s Guest (Candy Ride), Dubyuhnell (Good Magic), and an unnamed Bolt d’Oro out of Keep It a Secret. His fillies include Queenpin (Unified) and Showemyourheels (Munnings).

Trainer Bill Mott typically has a strong arsenal of young talent, including well-bred runners from the likes of Juddmonte Farms and Godolphin. Good News Rocket (Runhappy), a $700,000 2-year-old in-training purchase by Frank Fletcher, is a half-brother to Grade 1 winner Tiz Miz Sue. Game Warden (Tapit) and River Raft (Candy Ride) also look like interesting colts. Misintention (Into Mischief), Padma (Tapit), and Senior Prom Queen (Curlin) are among Mott’s fillies.

Jorge Abreu has 25 2-year-olds and is high on the fillies Moonage Daydream (Candy Ride), Alluring Angel (Fastnet Rock), Alice Kramden (Accelerate), and Highway Harmony (Mo Town).

On July 2 at Belmont, trainer Rudy Rodriguez won with the filly Apple Picker (Connect). He also sent out the third-place finisher Maria From Miami (Candy Ride), who suffered a cut in that race but could still make the Saratoga meet.

“I think she’s nice,” Rodriguez said. “She was a mental case in the gate.”

Rodriguez has the fillies La Vita Sofia (Cross Traffic); O Shaughesey (Good Samaritan), who finished a troubled second at Laurel Park on July 1 and may move to the turf; an unnamed Frosted filly out of Junoon; and an unnamed Central Banker filly out of Wild and Windblown.

All this data is from the DRF & you may want to add these mentioned to your stables.

The jockey colony at the SPA this meet looks like one of the toughest in years. Flavian Prat will be there the entire meet whereas last year he only rode in 18 races winning 3 which were all stakes. I thought he was en fuego @ Belmont but in actuality he only won @ 20%.

Jocks leaving Kentucky for the SPA include Gafflione, Leparoux & Santana. They join the Ortiz Bros, Rosario, Saez, Franco, Castellano, Velasquez & Davis in Saratoga. Luis Saez was the leading jock last year with 64 wins which was the 4th most in the history of the track. 

The meet only lasts 40 racing days ending on Labor Day. 

This is not Saratoga news but noteworthy nonetheless...

Thursday evening's live program at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, was cancelled after jockeys expressed concern over whether they can get timely medical care in the event of an accident.

The decision not to ride stems from a July 4 accident involving jockey Carlos Montalvo, who suffered head injuries in a fourth race spill when he fell after his mount, Bling's Bellwether, clipped heels at the eighth pole of the five-furlong main track race.

Montalvo claims he was unable to find a medical specialist who was willing to honor the $1-million accident policy purchased by Lone Star's parent company, Global Gaming. Terry Meyocks, national manager of the Jockeys' Guild, said his understanding was that some of the specialists and surgeons wanted to be paid “up front” rather than wait for insurance claims to go through. Ten days later, Montalvo still has not had the surgery he said he needs.

WTF???

Unreal....

Lone Star is back racing today after cancelling races both Thurs/Fri. No way they were cancelling 4 stakes today totaling 750k. 

But still no news if Montalvo ever got the medical treatment he needed.