Trikari

"Looking for the hidden gem." That, to Mike Slezak, is the point of crossover; the place where his breakout success dovetails with a personal passion that has now evolved into a way of life. "Which means trying to ask questions in a different way," he elaborates. "Not making assumptions, looking a little closer." To the many who first encountered Slezak in his American Idol debrief shows, the next stage of the analogy will make perfect sense. "It's scouting for a contestant like David Cook," he explains. "No-one thought he was...

He's not only back, he might be even better than he was last year. 'TDN Rising Star' Carl Spackler (Ire) (h, 5, Lope de Vega {Ire})--Zindaya, by More Than Ready), a back-to-back Grade I winner in 2024 before an uncharacteristic off-the-board finish in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile, unleashed a scintillating turn of foot in his 5-year-old debut at Keeneland Friday, capturing the $650,000 GI Maker's Mark Mile Stakes by 4 1/4 widening lengths. There was no catching the 4-5 favorite as 3-1 second choice Integration (Quality Road), most recently...

Churchill Downs has scheduled 50 stakes races cumulatively worth a record $26,175,000--a $525,000 increase--for its 2025 Spring Meet, which covers 43 race dates between April 26-June 29, the track said in a Friday press release. The American Turf for 3-year-olds, annually staged on the Kentucky Derby undercard, had its purse raised to $1 million after the American Graded Stakes Committee elevated the 1 1/16-mile grass race to Grade I status. The American Turf is one of four Spring Meet stakes that received purse hikes for 2025 and one of seven...

Oscar Performance (Kitten's Joy) was an outstanding turf horse, winning four Grade I's on the grass. And he's been a quality stallion, with his progeny headlined by the likes of Grade I winner Trikari and four other graded winners. Like most horses labeled `turf sires,' Oscar Performance, who stands at Mill Ridge Farm, was always going to be up against it in a country where breeders and buyers aren't necessarily looking for grass horses. European buyers don't need to buy horses by American turf stallions when they have so many...

With less than a week until the Breeders' Cup World Championships, you can pregame with a bevy of graded stakes races across three tracks and two types of surfaces on Saturday. Heading up to the Belmont At The Big A meet, the New York Racing Association has carded a trio of graded contests. Chief among them is the GII Mother Goose Stakes for 3-year-old fillies going nine furlongs on the dirt. At first glance, this appears to be a street fight between the pair that ran second and third to...

NEW KENT COUNTY, VA -- It would have been no surprise had trainer Graham Motion elected to run Amerman Racing's Trikari (Oscar Performance) in Sunday's rescheduled GI Saratoga Derby Invitational Stakes as opposed to the GII Secretariat Stakes at Colonial Downs. After all, the long-barreled bay was exiting a victory in the GI Belmont Derby over a mile and three-sixteenths, but Trikari proved more than capable of handling the step back down in trip with a powerful victory in the eight-furlong Secretariat. The second betting choice when all was said...

It is no longer referred to as the 'International Festival of Racing' and, sadly, it no longer calls Arlington Park home, but Colonial Downs's Festival of Racing is set for Sunday afternoon, shoved back to Sunday when the remnants of Tropical Storm Debby tracked up the East Coast over the course of the last few days. The featured GI Arlington Million has attracted field of six led by Godolphin's Nations Pride (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), who makes his eighth North American appearance in career start number 18. Winner of the GI...

When bloodstock agent Bob Feld and his son Sean first saw Trikari (Oscar Performance) at the 2022 OBS October Sale, they pegged him as a definite six-figure yearling and, with no clients for whom to buy the handsome bay, they moved on to the next one. But when the father-son team saw the colt had RNA'd for $30,000, they purchased him privately for just $27,500. Now campaigned by the Amermans, Trikari is a Grade I winner with earnings closing in on a million dollars. "My son and I were at...

Pop quiz: which North American third-crop sire leads his contemporaries by individual graded stakes winners in the Northern Hemisphere in 2024? It's not Justify, nor Good Magic, who are each tied with three and are the runaway leaders by 2024 progeny earnings. The correct answer is Mill Ridge Farm's Oscar Performance, who has four graded winners in 2024 and also leads the top third-crop sires by percentage of black-type winners to runners at 6.6%. In addition, Oscar Performance secured his first career Grade I winner as a sire Saturday with...

In a sit-sprint race that turned out to be a tactical affair, Trikari (Oscar Performance), the lesser-preferred half of an uncoupled, Amerman Racing-owned entry with 8-5 second choice Endlessly (Oscar Performance), sat handy to a sluggish pace, engaged long-time leader White Palomino (Kitten's Joy) at the furlong grounds and just held off a late re-rally from the pace-advantaged front-runner to take Saturday's GI Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes at Aqueduct. Two-back winner of the May 4 GII American Turf Stakes--at cricket-score odds--and exiting a game third in the GIII Penn Mile...

Winner of three of his four starts on the grass last season, including two at the Grade III level, Amerman Racing's Endlessly (Oscar Performance) returns to the grass for the first time as a 3-year-old as the 6-5 morning-line favorite for Saturday's $750,000 GI Belmont Derby. Typically contested over 10 furlongs at Belmont Park, this year's renewal takes place over a mile and three-sixteenths at Aqueduct. Victorious in the GIII Del Mar Juvenile Turf and GIII Zuma Beach Stakes, Endlessly was a wide-trip eighth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile...

Making his first trip to Penn National, Frankie Dettori completed a stakes double with a last-jump success aboard Qatar Racing and Hunter Valley Farm's First World War (War Front) in Friday's GIII Penn Mile. Sent off as the 33-10 third betting favorite behind last-out GII American Turf S. upsetter Trikari (Oscar Performance) and the twice-raced New York shipper Good Lord Lorrie (Hard Spun), the $285,000 Fasig-Tipton November weanling took up a position just behind midfield as 6-1 Set (Oscar Performance) galloped his rivals along through enervating fractions of :23.09 and...