Claiming Crown

A total of 90 horses spread over eight races were entered Saturday for next Saturday's 25th Claiming Crown, to be held for the first time since 2011 at New Orleans' Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. Trainer Mike Maker--whose all-time record 21 Claiming Crown victories include two last year at Churchill Downs--and Robertino Diodoro lead the way with seven entries apiece. For Maker, that includes four in the 12-horse $150,000 Claiming Crown Emerald at 1 1/16 miles on turf, headed by GI United Nations winner Therapist (Freud). Diodoro's trio in...

Louisiana's Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots will host 73 black-type races worth a combined $9.7 million during the upcoming 76-day 2023-24 Thoroughbred meet, officials at the New Orleans oval announced Wednesday. The amount is up $1.2 million from last year, but does include $1 million in base purses offered Dec. 2 as Fair Grounds hosts the 25th annual Claiming Crown. That event returns to Fair Grounds for the first time since 2011 with purses ranging from $75,000 to $200,000. Another $25,000 in each race will be available in purse...

Invaluable (Include) was named the 2022 Claiming Crown Horse of the Year by the National HBPA's Industry Awards Committee chaired by Todd Mostoller from the Pennsylvania HBPA. Invaluable will be recognized at the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association annual awards dinner on Sept. 9. Trainer Mike Maker and owner Peter Proscia's Paradise Farms Corp. claimed Invaluable, then 5 years old, in the final days of Saratoga's 2022 meet with the intention of running in the Claiming Crown on Nov . 12 at Churchill Downs. After finishing third in a $10,000...

The 2023 Claiming Crown will be staged for the first time since 2011 at the Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots in New Orleans on Saturday, Dec. 2, the National HBPA and the TOBA said in a joint release early on Thursday. The event will feature eight races totaling $1 million in base purses, headlined by the $200,000 Claiming Crown Jewel. Eric Hamelback, CEO of the National HBPA said, "The Claiming Crown was designed to celebrate our hard-knocking, unsung heroes of the turf. What better place--especially for our 25th running--than...

Beverly Park (Munnings), scored his 13th win of the year in his 28th seasonal start Monday in the sixth race at Mahoning Valley Race Course. With a little more than a month left in 2022 and his next closest competitors all five victories behind him, Beverly Park has now assuredly clinched the title of North America's winningest Thoroughbred based on victories for the year. Beverly Park's number of starts also leads the continent, and given this horse's penchant for performing well under a steady workload, the 5-year-old starter-allowance stalwart might...

The Week in Review by T.D. Thornton The annual Claiming Crown races were two weeks ago. But a surprise black-type feast for blue-collar campaigners took place over Thanksgiving weekend, when horses once claimed for tags as low as $10,000 and $16,000 ran away with three of five stakes at Laurel Park, and an 8-year-old gelding bought last year for $10,000 topped a blanket-finish trifecta of previously claimed sprinters in the GIII Fall Highweight H. at Aqueduct. The relic known as the Fall Highweight--in which nominees are assigned weights scaled several...

When trainer Tom Van Berg won two Claiming Crown races Saturday with his first horses in that series, most racing regulars made the connection to his father, the late Hall-of-Fame conditioner Jack Van Berg. But a link to another family legacy in that series might not have been as apparent: John Timothy Kirby, 25, who also saddled his first Claiming Crown starter to a victory in his first-ever race at Churchill Downs, is a third-generation horseman with strong roots that run deep in New England. In fact, after more than...

Trainer Mike Maker racked up his 20th and 21st Claiming Crown victories on Saturday, extending his lifetime lead among conditioners in that annual series by saddling Keystone Field (Candy Ride {Arg}) to a determined half-length win in the featured $175,000 Jewel. But while Maker's familiar presence in the winner's circle underscored his resilience in the event often described as the "blue-collar Breeders' Cup," a trainer taking his first crack at the Claiming Crown, Tom Van Berg, also registered two series victories and added a third on the undercard for a...

Trainer Mike Maker racked up his series-leading 19th career Claiming Crown victory, conditioner Saffie Joseph Jr. won three of the stakes conducted under starter-allowance conditions, and jockey Paco Lopez won five races overall on the Saturday card to kick off the championship meet at Gulfstream Park. The Claiming Crown began in 1999 as a blue-collar version of the Breeders' Cup to reward primarily older horses who compete in the types of races that form the backbone of day-to-day American racing. But oddly enough, it was a lightly-raced 3-year-old homebred who...

Frost Or Frippery (Lewis Michael--Samantha Mulder, by Lac Ouimet) has been named the 2020 Claiming Crown Horse of the Year by the Industry Awards Committee of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA). The 8-year-old gelding will be honored at the 36th annual awards dinner held by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) Sept. 11 at Hill 'n' Dale Farm at Xalapa in Paris, Ky. Claimed for $20,000 by Brad Cox for Steve Landers Racing LLC last April, Frost Or Frippery went on a five-race win streak and...

Grupo 7C Racing Stable's Jesus' Team (Tapiture), second in the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. Jan. 23, breezed six furlongs in 1:14.45 at Palm Meadows Training Center Saturday morning, three weeks out from a scheduled to run in the $12-million G1 Dubai World Cup Mar. 27. "He went perfect, just like I wanted," trainer Jose D'Angelo said. "He was spectacular on the gallop-out, faster than he finished. I think we're going to have a great trip to Dubai with him. He'll have one more work, an easy seven furlongs...

The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton Saturday's Claiming Crown races produced a three-way tie atop the North American leaderboard for winningest horse in terms of victories in 2020. Galerio (Jump Start), Frost Or Frippery (Lewis Michael) and Combination (Alternation) all enter the final three weeks of the year tied with eight wins apiece. How about scheduling a three-way invitational among these relatively matched geldings to settle the score prior to Dec. 31? The category of most victories in a season is annually overshadowed by the purse-earnings rankings, which are...