Horse Racing Free Tips

Weekend Lineup: Belmont Stakes Kicks Off American Triple Crown

For the first time in history, the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Stakes will serve as the first leg of the American Triple Crown when the classic takes place on June 20. The Belmont Stakes, which will be contested at 1 1/8-miles instead of its typical 12 furlongs, is one of six graded stakes and four Grade 1s on Belmont Park's Saturday card and will offer 150-60-30-15 Kentucky Derby qualifying points to the top-four finishers.

NBC will broadcast the 152nd Belmont Stakes with coverage of it stakes-laden card beginning at 2:45 p.m. ET. NBC will also broadcast the Royal Ascot meet on Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. ET.

For the first time since it began in 2016, America's Day at the Races will air Saturday's Belmont Stakes Day coverage, with several major races preceding the Belmont Stakes to be shown on the networks of FOX Sports starting at 11:30 a.m. ET. FOX Sports will offer 4 ½-hours of live coverage, which will sandwich NBC's live broadcast of Belmont Stakes Day from 2:45 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET.

HRRN's Belmont Stakes broadcast will air from 4:30-6 p.m. ET, and will be preceded by a 30-minute broadcast of the Acorn on the Belmont undercard beginning at 4 p.m. ET.

Saturday June 20

12:25 p.m.—$250,000 Grade 1 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park on FS1

Cash is King and LC Racing's Mischevious Alex, who captured the Grade 3 Gotham last out on March 7 for trainer John Servis, headlines the seven-furlong Woody Stephens. The Into Mischief bay, bred in Kentucky by WinStar Farm, arrives at Saturday's test for sophomores on a three-race streak that includes scores in the Parx Juvenile in November and the Grade 3 Swale in February at Gulfstream Park ahead of his Gotham glory. Undefeated since the addition of blinkers for his Parx Juvenile score, Mischevious Alex boasts a record of 7-4-1-1 with purse earnings of $344,230.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/BEL062020USA2-EQB.html

1:42 p.m.—$150,000 Grade 2 Pennine Ridge Stakes at Belmont Park on FS1

Grade 1-winner Decorated Invader headlines the Pennine Ridge over the Widener turf. Owned by Terry Finley's West Point Thoroughbreds in partnership with William T. Freeman, William Sandbrook and Cheryl Manning, Decorated Invader took Gulfstream Park's Cutler Bay on March 28 in his most recent start. The son of Declaration of War hit the gate at the break and was 15 lengths off the pace before making a five-wide move at the top of the stretch to garner a career-best 88 Beyer Speed Figure for the victory for trainer Christophe Clement.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/BEL062020USA4-EQB.html

3:01 p.m.—$150,000 Grade 3 Wonder Again Stakes at Belmont Park on NBC

Robert and Lawana Low's graded stakes winner Sweet Melania will attempt to keep her consistent record intact when she returns off a seven-and-a-half month layoff in Saturday's Wonder Again at Belmont Park. Trained by Todd Pletcher, Sweet Melania, a chestnut daughter of American Pharoah, graduated in July at third asking in a 1 1/16-mile turf tilt at Saratoga Race Course. She followed up a month later at the Spa with a strong effort in the P.G. Johnson when second, by a neck, to Crystalle ahead of a front-running 5 1/2-length score in the Grade 2 Jessamine on October 9 at Keeneland. She completed a lengthy 2-year-old campaign in November with a prominent third in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/BEL062020USA6-EQB.html

4:02 p.m.—$100,000 Grade 3 Wilshire Stakes at Santa Anita Park on TVG

A recent winner of two consecutive graded stakes, trainer Jonathan Wong's rapidly improving Keeper Ofthe Stars will square off with Neil Drysdale's classy comebacker Toinette as they head a field of seven fillies and mares in Saturday's Wilshire Stakes at one mile over the Santa Anita turf. A half length winner of the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes at one mile on turf February 22, this 4-year-old daughter of Midnight Lute came back to score the biggest win of her career on May 25, taking the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes by 1 ¼ lengths.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SA062020USA2-EQB.html

4:15 p.m.—$300,000 Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at Belmont Park on NBC

Tracy Farmer's Grade 1-winner Perfect Alibi has been ready to debut her 3-year-old form for the better part of the last few months. On Saturday, Belmont Stakes Day, the daughter of Sky Mesa will finally get the chance to take some tangible steps forward in her progress when she headlines a field of seven sophomore fillies in the Acorn Stakes. When Perfect Alibi heads to post in the Acorn – which has produced such divisional champions as Abel Tasman (2017) and Monomoy Girl (2018) in recent seasons – it will mark the first competitive outing for the dark bay filly since her fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita Park on November 1.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/BEL062020USA8-EQB.html

4:53 p.m.—$250,000 Grade 1 Jaipur Stakes at Belmont Park on NBC

An eclectic field of eight turf sprinters has lined up for Jaipur Stakes, which features a pair from the barn of Christophe Clement, a quartet of West Coast invaders and the star-crossed Hidden Scroll. Chief among the motley crew assembled for the Jaipur is the elder statesman Pure Sensation, who goes out for Clement and owner Patricia Generazio as he makes his 9-year-old debut off a fifth-place finish in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint to close out 2019. No stranger to this race, the gray Zensational gelding won the Jaipur in 2016, finished fourth in 2017 and third in 2018. Though he missed the Jaipur last year, he still put together a productive campaign which included wins in a pair of Grade 3 events at Parx Racing and an ungraded stake at Penn National.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/BEL062020USA9-EQB.html

5:01 p.m.—$200,000 Grade 2 Wise Dan Stakes at Churchill Downs on FS2

Gaining Ground Racing's three-time stakes winner Factor This will lead a field of 11 older horses that entered Saturday's 31st running of the Wise Dan Stakes on the turf. Factor This, a previous $62,500 claim in 2018, has won five races with trainer Brad Cox, including back-to-back stakes victories in the Grade 3 Fair Grounds and Grade 2 Muniz Memorial. The 5-year-old son of The Factor has been working consistently over the turf course at Churchill Downs with his pilot Shaun Bridgmohan aboard.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/CD062020USA9-EQB.html

5:42 p.m.—$1,000,000 Grade 1 Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park on NBC

A history-making Saturday will see the 152nd running of the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park serve as the Triple Crown's first leg for the first time in history. Sackatoga Stable's Tiz the Law headlines the 10-horse field, and will look to become the first NY-bred in 138 years to win the American Classic. The Barclay Tagg trainee is the race's only multiple graded stakes winner and has already registered a pair of Grade 1 triumphs, starting with his only previous Belmont Park appearance when he followed a debut win by posting a four-length victory in the Champagne in October. Tiz the Law, the No. 1-ranked horse on the NTRA Top Three-Year-Old Poll, has continued to train forwardly at Belmont, including a half-mile breeze in :50.42 seconds over Big Sandy on Sunday in his last work before the start of Triple Crown season.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/BEL062020USA10-EQB.html

7:32 p.m.—$100,000 Grade 3 Lazaro Barrera Stakes at Santa Anita Park on NBCSN

Fresh off a huge allowance score going six furlongs, trainer Mark Glatt's talented Collusion Illusion will stretch out a half-furlong and make his second start off an extended vacation as he heads Saturday's Lazaro Barrera Stakes at Santa Anita. The Barrera, named for the late Hall of Fame trainer, has attracted a field of five sophomores going 6 ½ furlongs. Bob Baffert's speedy Ragtime Blues, a winner of his last two starts, will get the first time services of Mike Smith and also figures prominently in what will be his fourth career start.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SA062020USA9-EQB.html

Sunday June 21

4:09 p.m.—$125,000 Grade 3 Whimsical Stakes at Woodbine on TVG

Sovereign Award-winning Summer Sunday, owned by Anne and William Scott, makes her five-year-old debut in the Whimsical Stakes. A seven-time winner from 11 starts, Summer Sunday takes on nine rivals, including graded stakes champion Jean Elizabeth, in the six-furlong Whimsical. Trained by Stuart Simon, Summer Sunday won three of six 2019 starts, including the Grade 2 Royal North Stakes, en route to Sovereign honors as Canada's champion female sprinter.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/WO062120CAN7-EQB.html

6 p.m.—$100,000 Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano Stakes at Santa Anita Park on NBCSN

A pair of long fused veterans, California-bred Ward 'n Jerry and Kentucky-bred Red King, third in last year's running, head a field of eight 3-year-olds and up on the turf in the San Juan Capistrano. The 81st renewal of the San Juan, Santa Anita's traditional closing day feature, will again include a hillside start at the top the Camino Real Turf Course. A homebred 7-year-old gelding by the late Lucky Pulpit, Ward 'n Jerry rates top billing in a wide open affair in which just one of the runners have ever run this far. Although he was most recently a non-threatening fifth in the Crystal Water Stakes at one mile on turf June 6, he took the Grade 3 San Luis Rey Stakes by an impressive 1 ¼ lengths two starts back on March 21.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SA062120USA6-EQB.html

8 p.m.—$100,000 Grade 3 American Stakes at Santa Anita Park on TVG

In a field replete with classy veterans returning off extended vacations, Richard Mandella's fast-improving Border Town seeks his third consecutive win in Sunday's American Stakes. Trainer Mark Glatt will be well represented by multiple graded stakes winner Sharp Samurai, who has been idle since August 18, and Phil D'Amato will send out a pair of classy comebackers, multiple Grade 1-winner Bowies Hero, idle since November 2, and graded stakes winning Cleopatra's Strike, who's been idle 4 ½ months.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/SA062120USA10-EQB.html

The post Weekend Lineup: Belmont Stakes Kicks Off American Triple Crown appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse Jockey Rodney Prescott Records 4,000th Career Winner

Having the skills to ride in both Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse races has paid off for Jockey Rodney Prescott. The Portland, Ind. native reached a milestone not many jockeys obtain as he scored his 4,000th career win for combined Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse races Wednesday, June 17 at Indiana Grand.

Prescott, Indiana's all-time leading jockey, was a winner in the afternoon's opening race, guiding Serena's Hope to victory in a near gate to wire performance in the five-furlong sprint. Once the five-year-old daughter by Strong Hope was on the lead, she continued to open up on the field, winning by more than seven lengths to give Prescott another milestone in his already stellar riding career.

“This mare (Serena's Hope) had the winter off, and I actually rode her mom (Serena's Reward) for the same owners,” said Prescott. “I've been breezing her in the mornings and she's been breezing well. She broke well today, and she likes to be out front. That is the perfect scenario for her. She really finished well today too, and winning in that time (:59.16), that's pretty quick for this track.”

Owned by Chris Walsh, Serena's Hope paid $44.40 to win as a surprise to bettors. The Indiana sired mare was making her first start of 2020. She now has four career wins and in excess of $54,000 in career earnings. Kim Hammond trains Serena's Hope.

“It's nice to get a milestone like this on a horse trained by Kim (Hammond),” said Prescott. “She is the winningest female trainer in history. The past few years, we have done well together, so this was a nice horse to get this win on.”

Later in the card, Prescott connected for another win aboard Flat Meadow in a five-furlong turf allowance optional claimer, giving him a riding double for the day.

Prescott now has 3,869 Thoroughbred wins and 132 Quarter Horse wins. Of those total wins, 1,143 of them have been recorded at Indiana Grand. Prescott has competed in all 26 years of pari-mutuel racing held in the state of Indiana, dating back to the inaugural season at Hoosier Park in 1995. Prescott is a three-time leading jockey at Indiana Grand, winning the title in 2004, 2005 and 2018. He also shares the title for most wins recorded in one program, winning six races in 2013. Prescott has also won 28 Thoroughbred stakes races at Indiana Grand.

Prescott is also ranked fourth on the list of all-time leading Quarter Horse jockeys. He has 12 career Quarter Horse stakes victories at the track, bringing his combined Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse stakes win total to 40 at Indiana Grand.

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This Side Up: Inside-Out Classic Has Redemptive Potential

The last shall be first; and the longest, shortest. Insofar, that is, as we have a Triple Crown series at all. This year, to many, the

GI Belmont S. is just another mile-and-eighth GI Kentucky Derby prep, conveniently loaded with qualifying points. For those deigning to line up, however, an asterisk is a perfectly acceptable price for becoming a 152nd consecutive name in the annals of the oldest Classic, extending all the way back to Ruthless at Jerome Park.

The modern ruthless can perhaps be found at Churchill Downs instead–albeit we still don’t know if they will be able to bank the gate money that appeared, rather transparently, to drive their contemptuous treatment of those tracks that host the other Classics, not to mention historic prizes like the GI Runhappy Travers S.

The unilateral postponement to September of the Kentucky Derby represented one of our sport’s very first responses to the pandemic. A sudden, shared crisis called for far-sighted leadership, collective strategy and a spirit of sacrifice. As it was, we saw an immediate fragmentation by vested interests.

Whatever the merit of the resulting schedule, the 2020 Derby will clearly be tailored to Thoroughbreds at a different stage of their development. And already both the sophomores who were ready to win a Grade I over 10 furlongs on May 2 are out of the picture.

But the misfortunes that derailed Charlatan (Speightstown) and Nadal (Blame) can afflict any Thoroughbred, any time. Maxfield (Street Sense), after all, was only ever able to approach the Derby through the back door-and now he, too, is off the trail. Some things never change, and the few immutabilities of these confusing times are not always comforting.

Connections of Maxfield, of course, had already renounced the Belmont in favor of the GII Blue Grass S. That was perfectly defensible, in serving the interests of a specific horse. But all these defections, taken together, rob us of a solace we desperately needed in this horrible year.

That said, we still have the redemptive prospect of an East-West showdown between Honor A.P. (Honor Code) in California, and whoever picks up the gauntlet in New York Saturday.

And there’s a word–“redemptive”–we may hear a great deal should Sole Volante (Karakontie {Jpn}) emerge as best in the East. Now I realize that many people will never even give Patrick Biancone a hearing, in protesting his innocence of charges past. Without remotely entertaining his side of the story, they would cheerfully have “thrown away the key” when it came to his return. It takes some courage, indeed, even to enunciate one of the principles that defines a just society: guilty or not, he is entitled to start over after duly serving the punishment ordained for his (perceived/denied) offenses.

Perhaps, then, his only viable redemption–given that some will never be reconciled to his rehabilitation, whatever he does–would be to succeed afresh by methods that he knows, in his own heart, to be whiter than white. If he can never win round everybody else, all Biancone can realistically do is look himself in the mirror knowing that he has relied scrupulously and solely on his flair as a horseman (which it would be churlish to deny) while lacking the kind of patronage he previously enjoyed. For instance, in winning a Classic with a $20,000 gelding.

Human dignity is too precious, and too precarious, to be denied by mere presumption. To see Biancone reassemble his self-respect, somehow sieving out two of the best sophomores of their crop (the other being Ete Indien {Summer Front}, spectacular winner of the GII Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth S.), should at least intrigue any truly humane observer.

Our presumptions, remember, are based on the herd–and anyone can see that Biancone is an uncommon creature. Just consider the way he has brought out these two turf-bred horses. Who else, nowadays, would have prepared Sole Volante (alongside Ete Indien) with a $55,000 allowance prize 10 days ago? And who else would have sufficient courage of their convictions to recognize in Luca Panici, a 46-year-old who has previously ridden a single graded stakes winner, a horsemanship and character equal to this opportunity?

A single turn won’t play to the strengths of Panici’s mount, especially if Belmont is feeding the speed. He will surely risk traffic on the inside sooner than get stuck wide rounding that endless sweep out of the back stretch, especially out of gate two.

With luck, there should be enough pace for a gap to open as they tire up front. The rails draw hands the initiative to Tap It to Win (Tapit) after he burned off a talented pursuer here last time; while Fore Left (Twirling Candy) forged his Dubai success from the front, and likewise a stakes win last summer on his only previous Belmont start. Between them, perhaps they can generate enough heat to ignite Sole Volante’s acceleration.

Whether he can get going in time to outfinish Tiz The Law (Constitution) remains to be seen. That horse sets the clear standard, with a Grade I already to his name round here plus a congenial stalking set-up. So long as Sole Volante again finishes with gusto, however, he can at least keep himself in the Derby picture.

Of the less seasoned types, Max Player (Honor Code) offers his sire a coast-to-coast foothold for superstardom; Pneumatic (Uncle Mo) fared creditably enough against Maxfield, having looked special in his maiden; while Dr Post (Quality Road) has already shown fight of a sort he might have borrowed from his purchaser, the late Jimmy Crupi.

Now there was a guy who showed, with all the disadvantages he was dealt, that you can start at the back of the line and still, with enough industry and wit, work your way to the front. Anticipating the likely run of the race, however, this time it may turn out to be Sole Volante who decrees that the last shall be first.

The post This Side Up: Inside-Out Classic Has Redemptive Potential appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Churchill Announces Trio Of Additional Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pools

Churchill Downs will host a trio of additional Future Wager pools in advance of the rescheduled 146th running of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (Grade I) on Saturday, Sept. 5. Also, there will be one additional Kentucky Oaks Future Wager pool.

· KDFW Pool 5: Friday, June 26 through Sunday, June 28

· KDFW Pool 6: Friday, July 17 through Sunday, July 19

· KOFW Pool 2: Friday, July 17 through Sunday, July 19

· KDFW Pool 7: Friday, Aug. 7 through Sunday, Aug. 9

The Kentucky Derby Future Wager features $2 Win and Exacta wagering, and provides fans of Thoroughbred racing with opportunities to place bets on possible entrants in the Kentucky Derby at odds that could be far greater than those available on the day of the race.

The Pool 5 field will be announced Wednesday morning.

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