Santa Anita

Super Corredora (Gun Runner), a front-running, upset winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, will launch her sophomore campaign in the GIII Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita Feb. 1, according to trainer John Sadler. She returned to the worktab with a three-furlong bullet in :34.60 (1/9) in Arcadia Dec. 12. "She had her little vacation and she's doing really well," Sadler said. "She had her first work Friday. Right now, the plan calls for her to go in the Las Virgenes and have one more prep, whether it's...

Horses that win a California-bred first-level allowance race will enjoy expanded opportunities beginning with the Dec. 26 opening of the Classic Meet at Santa Anita, the track announced Friday. The Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), in collaboration with Santa Anita, Del Mar, Los Alamitos and the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association (CTBA), have reached an agreement to broaden the available options to include two wins over the same surface in Cal-bred first conditioned allowance races. Under the existing policy, Cal-breds are entitled to two wins in the first level allowance if...

News last week about the loss of this year's GIII Bob Hope Stakes after receiving just three entrants--all from the Bob Baffert stable--wasn't exactly a shock. But is it a canary in the coal mine concerning the health of California's horse inventory? Not on its own. It is, however, one among a flock of important indicators. Growing attention has been spent on the implications from the consolidation of top bloodstock between fewer and fewer stables, with many observing how a greater distribution of horses among more stables would help the...

While chatting with owner David Wilson earlier this summer, trainer Vladimir Cerin mentioned a potential claim on Del Mar's July 31 program. "I told him that someone asked me to claim a horse for $150,000, but I really didn't like the horse," Cerin said. "And he said, 'Well, I like a different horse in that same race. Why don't we take him?'" A fantastic longshot second in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Del Mar Oct. 31, Mr. A. P. (American Pharoah) is him. Mr. A. P. was claimed by...

With what feels like the culmination from years of mounting pressure, the volcano of opprobrium over Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) erupted this summer, spilling all over the industry. The debate around CAW players typically surrounds the edge they wield over regular gamblers thanks to their use of sophisticated technologies that allow them to precisely read the markets and to place massive wagers across many pools in the final seconds of betting-sometimes leading to extreme late odds changes-as well as the attractive rates and rebates offered to them which are unavailable...

6. SOLITUDE DUDE, GP, 11/1, 6 1/2 furlongs. (VIDEO) Beyer Speed Figure- 86 (c, 2, by Yaupon--After the Party, by Into Mischief) O-Chris Fountoukis. B-Martha Buckner and Matthew Ernst (Ky). T-Saffie Joseph, Jr.. J-Micah Husbands. Debuting as third betting choice (another Saffie Joseph first-timer was favored), he drubbed the competition by 9 1/2 lengths after setting the fractions. Joseph signed the $300k ticket in June at OBS for the son of first-crop sire Yaupon. The jury is still out on Yaupon's stamina genes, and Solitude Dude's dam was also a...

A horse by the name of Sovereignty (Into Mischief) showed up for last year's GIII Street Sense Stakes as a maiden and departed as one of the leaders of the division with a remarkable come-from-behind rally to break his maiden. It waits to be seen whether any of the seven juvenile signed on for Sunday's renewal can achieve similar heights, but--as always in this business--hope springs eternal. The single, most solid piece of form in the field belongs to Universe (Global Campaign), whose trainer Ken McPeek sent out King Fury...

It has been an atypically slow Keeneland fall meeting for the powerful barn of Chad Brown, who had been represented by a single winner from his first 17 starters in a maiden claimer on Oct. 23. But a win from Juddmonte's Salamis (Speightstown) in Saturday's $600,000 GIII Bryan Station Stakes would go a long ways in turning Brown's frown upside down--at least to a certain degree. A son of Juddmonte's GI Just A Game Stakes heroine Antonoe (First Defence) and therefore the half-brother to GSW & MGISP Segesta (Ghostzapper), Salamis...

In an industry that always seems petrified by the idea of change, the announcement that a new performance-based rating system based on an Equibase algorithm is about to debut at Santa Anita probably didn't go over too well with horsemen.  Each horse will be assigned a number generated by Equibase and then races will be written using the system. One of the first races that may come up, if it fills, is open to horses rated between 80-95. The rating number is different from Equibase's speed figures. Santa Anita is...

Less than two weeks before the Breeders' Cup, a quartet of hopefuls--highlighted by GISW Sweet Azteca (Sharp Azteca)--turned in six-furlongs works Sunday at Santa Anita. With jockey Juan Hernandez aboard, Sweet Azteca was clocked officially in a swift 1:10.80. Trainer Richard Baltas timed the drill in 1:11.20. Also working six furlongs on the main track Sunday, all for trainer Bob Baffert, wereTDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard Nysos (Nyquist) (1:11.60), Nevada Beach (Omaha Beach) (1:11.80) and last year's juvenile champion Citizen Bull (Into Mischief) (1:12.60). Nysos and Citizen Bull are...

Full Serrano (Arg) (Full Mast), working for an expected title defense in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, GI Pennsylvania Derby winner Baeza (McKinzie), unbeaten 2-year-old 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' Brant (Gun Runner) and potential Breeders' Cup favorites Seismic Beauty (Uncle Mo) and Ag Bullet (Twirling Candy) were among the Breeders' Cup hopefuls on the worktab Saturday at Santa Anita. Full Serrano worked for the second time since a runner-up effort in the GI Goodwood S. going 1 1/8 miles Sept. 27 at Santa Anita. He was timed...

Most with a story to tell regale audience and bystander around the dinner table or the campfire or at the bar. More disciplined souls sit at the typewriter to memorialize it in print. But what possesses someone to then take that memoir and distill it into a screenplay, fundraise a small retirement account for a movie of that screenplay that you'll direct yourself before premiering the finished product in a packed Los Angeles movie theater for a collection of SoCal racing glitterati? "The summer of my first year in college...