April, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Robin Goodfellow’s racing tips: Best bets for Thursday, April 27

Mail Sport's racing expert Robin Goodfellow delivers his tips for Thursday's racing from Perth, Beverley, Taunton and Warwick.

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Santa Anita: Adare Manor Leads Field Of Six In Saturday’s Santa Maria

Fresh off a sharp allowance score at one mile, Bob Baffert's Adare Manor heads a field of six older fillies and mares going a mile and one sixteenth in Saturday's Grade 2, $200,000 Santa Maria Stakes at Santa Anita.

A gate to wire winner at odds of 1-2 on March 31, Adare Manor posted a solid 92 Beyer Speed Figure in what was her second start of the year. A runaway 13-length winner going one mile in the G3 Las Virgenes here on Feb. 6, 2022, she was then a close second as the 3-5 favorite in last year's G2 Santa Anita Oaks.

Subsequently second in the Black Eyed Susan at Pimlico on May 20, 2022, Adare Manor was well beaten in the G1 Cotillion Stakes Sept. 24 at Parx Racing near Philadelphia. Idle prior to her 4-year-old debut here on Feb. 18, a seven furlong allowance in which she ran second at 4-5 she'll be making her 10th career start on Saturday.

A 4-year-old filly by Uncle Mo out of the Giant Gizmo mare Brooklynsway, Adare Manor is owned by Michael Lund Petersen and will be ridden for the third time in a row by Juan Hernandez. With three wins and four seconds, she has earnings of $381,600.

Keith Abrahams' homebred Kirstenbosch, a game nose winner of the G3 La Canada Stakes three starts back on Jan. 15, will be handled for the fifth consecutive time by Kazushi Kimura, as he'll return from his base at Woodbine Racecourse in Toronto to ride here on Saturday.

Trained by John Sadler, Kirstenbosch was most recently third, beaten one length in the G3 Monrovia at 6 ½ furlongs on dirt April 8 and she's well positioned to bring her best in the Santa Maria. Bred in Kentucky, Kirstenbosch is a 4-year-old filly by Midnight Lute out of the Belong to Me mare Llandudno.

With an overall mark of 12-3-3-2, she has earnings of $368,480.

Although her resume is light in terms of graded stakes experience, Sadler's Big Switch, most recently second, beaten a head by Adare Manor in a one mile allowance March 31, appears to be a solid fit in what will be her second graded stakes assignment.

Owned and bred in California by George Krikorian, Big Switch is a two-time statebred stakes winner making her ninth career start at age four. By Mr. Big out of the Malibu Moon mare Two Faced Moon, Big Switch, who is unbeaten in two tries at a mile and one sixteenth, will once again be forwardly placed with Joe Bravo back aboard.

With earnings of $339,924, she has four wins and two seconds to her credit.

THE GRADE 2 SANTA MARIA WITH JOCKEYS & WEIGHTS IN POST POSITION ORDER

Race 9 of 12 Approximate post 5:00 p.m. PT

Kirstenbosch – Kazushi Kimura—122
Adare Manor – Juan Hernandez – 120
Big Switch – Joe Bravo – 120
Smoothlikebuttah – Tiago Pereira – 120
Mongolian Panther – Geovanni Franco – 120
Bellamore – Ramon Vazquez – 120

First post time for a 12-race card on Saturday is at 1 p.m. with admission gates opening at 11 a.m.

The post Santa Anita: Adare Manor Leads Field Of Six In Saturday’s Santa Maria appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Triple Crown Winner Justify Shuttling To Coolmore Australia For 2023 Southern Hemisphere Season

Justify, the Triple Crown winner and Horse of the Year in 2018, will once again shuttle to Coolmore Australia for the 2023 Southern Hemisphere breeding season after a successful freshman year on the continent, Racing Post reports.

The 8-year-old son of Scat Daddy is in the midst of the North American breeding season at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., where he stands for an advertised fee of $100,000. His oldest Northern Hemisphere foals are 3-year-olds of 2023, including Kentucky Derby contender Verifying, who finished second in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes.

Justify is Australia's leading freshman sire, with combined progeny earnings on the continent of $1,618,175. His best Australian runner to date is Learning to Fly, a filly whose group stakes conquests include the Group 2 Reisling Stakes.

“We welcome Justify back to Australia with open arms, on the back of a remarkable start to his stud career,” Coolmore Australia's Tom Moore told Racing Post. “While it is only early days for him in Australia, he has already produced arguably the best two-year-old filly in Australia in Learning To Fly and is the leading first-season sire by a significant margin.

“The feedback we are getting from trainers throughout Australia suggests that this is only the tip of the iceberg for him in this part of the world,” Moore continued.

Justify last shuttled to Australia in 2021, marking the third consecutive season he had done so. In that time, he covered 373 mares on Southern Hemisphere time.

A Southern Hemisphere fee will be announced for Justify at a later time.

Laurel: Veteran Passero’s ‘Quick Fixes’ Could Have Racing Resume By Saturday

Racing at Laurel Park may resume as early as this Saturday, after veteran track surfaces manager John Passero examined the surface on Wednesday, April 26, according to an agreement between track management and the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. Tim Keefe, a trainer who is the president of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, told the Daily Racing Form that Passero made a few fixes and that additional changes could be made in time to race by Saturday.

“He made some quick fixes, some changes he thought were necessary,” Keefe told DRF. “He's very comfortable that we'll be where we need to be on Saturday.”

Passero served as senior vice president of racing surfaces for the Maryland Jockey Club earlier in his career, and his assessment was requested by the MTHA in a letter sent to track management earlier this week.

A text message from the Maryland Jockey Club alert system indicated that normal training hours will resume on Thursday, April 27, with the first 10 minutes after each harrow break reserved for workers only. It will be the first day works have been allowed for nearly a week.

Entries were also taken for Saturday's card, including five stakes races which were originally scheduled to be run on April 22. A total of 116 horses were entered for 11 races.

According to MTHA, five horses suffered fatal injuries in April at Laurel, including two on Thursday, April 20. Live racing was cancelled the next day, and neither of last weekend's programs were run. A card that was scheduled for April 27 did not move forward due to lack of entries. Track management has maintained that measurements of various components of the track surface currently fall “within industry norms” and also that the rate of fatal injury so far for 2023 is below that of the same period last year, at 1.3 per 1,000 starts as compared to 1.98 per 1,000 starts last year.

Information provided by the state shows that 13 fatalities have occurred at Laurel so far this year, four of which occurred in a race, and five of which occurred in training, and four of which were listed as “medical” and not the direct result of an orthopedic injury.

The state's data show six fatalities in April, though one of those was considered “medical” since it was the result of laminitis that occurred after a case of cellulitis.