Will return in Saturday’s fifth race

Ed Gray
Gulfstream Park

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Animal Kingdom produced a career moment for trainer Graham Motion when Team Valor International’s colt powered to a 2¾-length triumph in the Kentucky Derby (G1) last May.

Although Animal Kingdom will forever be

Ed Gray
Gulfstream Park

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Peter Walder is looking forward to a successful 2012 campaign for Force Freeze, a 7-year-old gelding who developed into an elite sprinter last fall. Yet, this racing season may seem to move a little slow for the trainer of the veteran sprinter that came so excruciatingly close to winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in his 2011 finale.

“It was heartbreaking. It haunts me. I watch that race two or three times…

Jennifer Hoyt
Oaklawn Park

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The roar of the Tex Sutton retro-fitted Boeing 727 never fails to charge up Hot Springs Municipal Airport and Tuesday was no different as four shippers from California arrived safely including Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Sprint winner Secret Circle and his Bob Baffert-trained stablemate Castaway.

Also on the early-morning flight out of Ontario International west of L.A. was Longview Drive for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer and Unbridled’s Note for trainer Steve Asmussen. All…

(Edited Gulfstream Park report)

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Hymn Book’s emergence as a star in the handicap division can be credited to a surface switch from turf to dirt, but the 6-year-old gelding would never have had a chance to win Saturday’s $500,000 Donn Handicap (G1) at GulfstreamPark without one very important event early in his career.

“He wouldn’t have been any good if he wasn’t gelded,” said trainer Shug McGaughey, who made the call to geld the son of…

(Edited Gulfstream Park report)

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Brian Lynch Racing Ltd.’s Red Hot Doll is very fast and has won three of eight starts for her owner-trainer on dirt and synthetic tracks. On Sunday she will make her turf course debut in a field of eight 3-year-old fillies drawn for the $60,000 Madcap Escapade Stakes at Gulfstream Park to be run at five furlongs on grass.

Leading jockey Javier Castellano picks up the mount on Red Hot Doll, who…

Good Weather Fuels Strong Field Sizes and Crowds

Jennifer Hoyt
Oaklawn Park

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Mother Nature has blessed Oaklawn with much better weather this season and as a result, the track is raising overnight purses $5,000 per day beginning with Thursday’s 9-race card. Oaklawn was due some good fortune in the weather department after losing a record eight days to cold, snow and ice in 2011.

Through Sunday, Feb. 5, the 16th day of the 56 day…

Michele Blanco
Calder Race Course

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Calder Casino & Race Course announces its stakes schedules for the 2012 Calder and Tropical meets as it prepares to start this year’s live racing season on April 9.  Calder hosts two consecutive meets: the 85-day Calder Meet from April 9 to Aug. 31; and the 65-day Tropical Meet from Sept. 1 to Dec. 2.

The Calder Meet will be jump-started with three exciting stakes in the month of April,…

(Edited Tampa Bay Downs report) 

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Assistant trainer Heather Craig doesn’t care if anyone thinks Grade II winner State of Play looks fat. When she saddles the colt for his 3-year-old debut in Saturday’s Grade III, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs, she knows she’ll be sending out a fit horse.

Owned by Barry Irwin’s Team Valor International and trained by H. Graham Motion, the connections of 2011 Kentucky Derby winner and Eclipse champion Animal…

Amy Gregory
Keeneland Association Inc.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Five Grade 1 stakes, among them the Toyota Blue Grass, Central Bank Ashland and the newly upgraded Jenny Wiley Stakes, headline the 16 stakes worth $3.625 million slated for Keeneland’s 2012 spring race meeting.

The 15-day spring meeting will be held Friday, April 6 through Friday, April 27. There is no racing on Mondays, Tuesdays or Easter Sunday (April 8). Post time for the first race is 1:15 p.m. daily.

Five…

(NYRA release)

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) will offer a new $150,000 Guaranteed Late Pick 4 at Aqueduct Racetrack beginning this Friday, February 3, and continuing through April 20, the final Friday of the meet.

The Late Pick 4 spans the final four races on the card and requires bettors to select four consecutive winners. By guaranteeing the wager, NYRA will supplement the net difference if the total pool is less than $150,000.

In…