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NYRA Partners With Delaware Park For All Graded Stakes Cross Country Pick 5

The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) will team with Delaware Park to host a Cross Country Pick 5 encompassing all graded stakes on Saturday, July 4.

The wager will feature the first two legs at Delaware Park and the concluding three at Belmont Park. Live coverage of Saturday's stakes action from Belmont Park will be available with America's Day at the Races on FS1 and MSG+. NBC, which will air live coverage from 5-6 p.m. Eastern, will show the sequence's third leg with the Grade 1, $500,000 Runhappy Metropolitan at 5:47 p.m.

Free Equibase past performances for the Cross Country Pick 5 sequence are now available for download at https://www.nyra.com/belmont/racing/cross-country-wagers.

Delaware Park will kick off the wager at 4:45 p.m. with the Grade 3, $300,000 Delaware Oaks for sophomore fillies going 1 1/16 miles in Race 8. The eight-horse field will be part of a historic Delaware Oaks edition, as the race will offer 50-20-10-5 qualifying points towards the Kentucky Oaks in September at Churchill Downs for the first time. Piece of My Heart, the winner of the Gardenia in May, has been training at Delaware Park and will compete against a field that includes Comical, trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen.

Action will stay at Delaware for Race 9 in the Grade 3, $125,000 Kent for 3-year-olds going 1 1/8 miles on turf. Gufo, 5-2 on the morning line, enters with three straight wins. The Christophe Clement trainee made his debut in November at Aqueduct Racetrack and won the English Channel last out in May at Gulfstream Park. Post time is 5:15 p.m.

Belmont Park, which offers a total of five graded stakes on Runhappy Met Mile Day, will close out the Independence Day wager by hosting the final three legs, starting with the Runhappy Met Mile in Race 9. An eight-horse field boasting a combined 20 graded stakes victories will look to capture the Runhappy Met Mile and in the process earn an automatic entry to the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile in November at Keeneland.

The race's 127th edition features Code of Honor, a $2.4-million earner and winner of last year's Grade 1 Runhappy Travers at Saratoga and Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup; and four-time Grade 1-winner McKinzie, who captured last year's Grade 1 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga and boasts lifetime earnings of over $3.4 million.

The penultimate leg of the Cross Country Pick 5 will offer another Grade 1, with the $400,000 Manhattan for 4-year-olds and up going 1 ¼ miles on the inner turf in Race 10 at 6:20 p.m. Seven-time winner Sadler's Joy will be making his third career start in the Manhattan, coming tantalizingly close to a win for trainer Tom Albertrani by finishing a neck behind Spring Quality as part of a blanket finish in 2018. The year prior, the son of Kitten's Joy ran third, 1 ½-lengths back to winner Ascend. Sadler's Joy ended his 2019 year with a two-length win in the Grade 3 Red Smith in November at Aqueduct Racetrack and started his 7-year-old campaign against top-tier competition, running sixth in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf in January at Gulfstream Park.

Two-time Grade 1-winner Channel Maker will return to the site of his most recent win, when he bested Arklow by a neck to win the Grade 1 Man o'War in May 2019. Trainer Chad Brown has won the Manhattan four of the last six runnings and entered a troika of contenders for his bid to repeat after Bricks and Mortar's triumph last year. This year, he will saddle Instilled Regard, Devamani and Rockemperor.

Closing out the sequence will be the Grade 2, $200,000 Suburban in Race 11 at 6:51 p.m. The 1 1/4-mile test on Big Sandy, will feature the one-two-three finishers of last year's Grade 1 Belmont Stakes as Sir Winston, Tacitus and Joevia rematch in the 134th edition of the 10-furlong Suburban.

Sir Winston, who won the 2019 Belmont Stakes for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse, made his belated return on June 11 on a sloppy Belmont strip in the 1 3/8-mile Flat Out, running second by 5 ¼-lengths to Suburban rival Moretti. Tacitus will make his third start of the season and first since running fourth in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap on May 2. Joevia was fourth last out in the Grade 3 Westchester off a three-month layoff.

The minimum bet for the multi-track, multi-race wager is 50 cents. Wagering on the Cross Country Pick 5 is also available on ADW platforms and at simulcast facilities across the country. Every week will feature a mandatory payout of the net pool.

The Cross Country Pick 5 will continue each Saturday throughout the year. For more information, visit NYRABets.com.

Cross Country Pick 5 – Saturday, July 4:

Leg 1 – Delaware Park, Race 8: Grade 3 Delaware Oaks (4:45 p.m.)
Leg 2 – Delaware Park, Race 9: Grade 3 Kent (5:15 p.m.)
Leg 3 – Belmont, Race 9: Grade 1 Runhappy Met Mile (5:47 p.m.)
Leg 4 – Belmont, Race 10: Grade 1 Manhattan (6:20 p.m.)
Leg 5 – Belmont, Race 11: Grade 2 Suburban (6:51 p.m.)

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Del Mar Outlines Safety Guidelines for 2020 Summer Meet

The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club (DMTC) has implemented a new set of protocols and procedures to ensure human safety at its seaside Thoroughbred headquarters in advance of its 81st racing season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the track will race without fans in 2020. Working in conjunction with health and medical experts in the county and state, Del Mar has put together a human safety program which will be in effect at the 340-acre racetrack during the 28-day season, running from July 10 to Sept. 7.

Among the daily measures that will be implemented this summer:

Admittance to the facility will be strictly limited to essential personnel
Daily on-site health screening for all personnel, which include temperature checks
All personnel will be required to wear face coverings
Some staff–such as jockeys and the starting gate crew– will be required to wear additional personal protective equipment
Proper social distancing will be required
Additional handwashing and sanitizer stations throughout the Grandstand and stable area
Enhanced janitorial services including daily disinfectant of all “common areas”
No congregation of people will be permitted in the saddling/paddock area
Saddling/paddock area and starting gate will be disinfected after each race
On-site medical personnel
Quarantine area procedures

Additionally, access to the Del Mar stable area will be limited to those licensed individuals who work directly with the horses. Stable area personnel will be subject to the same mask/ wristbands/distance rules all frontside individuals will work under.

For a complete rundown on Del Mar’s safety protocols and procedures for the 2020 meeting, click here.

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‘Right Horses In The Right Spot’: James Graham Hoping Luck Holds Again This Summer At Ellis Park

James Graham won last year's Ellis Park riding title amid what likely was the toughest jockey colony in track history. Now he'll try to repeat his crown against an even deeper assembly of riders during the RUNHAPPY Summer Meet at Ellis Park that begins Thursday and runs through Aug. 30.

Graham won the 2019 Ellis title with 26 wins to nip the 25 accrued by three-time defending champion Corey Lanerie and Tyler Baze, who had just relocated from California to Kentucky. Graham has been adept this past year in winning meet championships in photo finishes, taking the Fair Grounds winter title in New Orleans with 63 victories, one better than Mitchell Murrill and three more than Colby Hernandez, both of whom will be based at Ellis Park for the first time.

Lanerie, who has won five Ellis titles overall, was out of state riding on the last day of the 2019 meet, when Graham won two races to secure his first crown at a Kentucky track.

“We got lucky,” Graham said. “Corey was out of town the last weekend, just about. If Corey had been there, would he have won two or one? Would Tyler have gotten lucky? With a couple of better trips from the horses he rode, he might have won it, too. Just luck. Riding the right horses in the right spot in the right time.”

But don't think that the 41-year-old doesn't take deep pride in winning his first riding title in Kentucky, after having won riding titles at Chicago's Arlington Park and New Orleans' Fair Grounds.

“Always, always,” Graham said. “Every win is an achievement.”

Still, he insists he didn't think about winning the title until the final days.

“I don't think about stuff like that,” Graham said. “I just think about the here and the now and riding races. I didn't realize I was as close as I was. I was just doing my work, enjoying it, because I enjoy riding. And that's what it's about. It's not about, 'Yeah, we knew we were close, but we didn't know if we were actually going get there.' Because you're worried about now and not what's going to happen in three or four days from now.”

With 15 wins, Graham also had a big meet at Churchill Downs, whose meet ended this past Sunday.

“You can never expect too much in horse racing,” he said. “You hope to have a good meet. The bonus is coming out of it without being hurt, making it through and making a living for yourself.”

Graham, a married father of three, grew up in Dublin, Ireland, coming to the United States in 2002 and working as an exercise rider in Lexington. His first summer as a jockey in America came in 2003 at Ellis Park before he moved on to ride at Chicago's Arlington Park in the summers and then on to California before returning to Kentucky fours years ago.

As the purse money got better at Ellis Park, so did the competition to win races.

Last year Florent Geroux and Baze were among those deciding that it works well to stay in Kentucky for the summer, riding at Ellis Park except when stakes business drew them out of state. Geroux is a five-time Breeders' Cup winner, including on Horse of the Year Gun Runner and Kentucky Oaks winner and champion Monomoy Girl. Baze was the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey in 2000.

New for 2020 are two-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Julien Leparoux, California mainstays Joe Talamo and Martin Garcia, Louisiana stalwart Colby Hernandez (brother of Kentucky-based Brian Hernandez) and the up-and-coming Mitchell Murrill, along with the return of two-time Ellis champ Rafael Bejarano after 13 years in California. That's in addition to the strong cast of regulars: Graham, Lanerie, Brian Hernandez, Miguel Mena, Shaun Bridgmohan and — oh, by the way — three-time Kentucky Derby-winner and Hall of Famer Calvin Borel.

“No matter where you go in Kentucky, it's always tough,” Graham said. “You've got a lot of good riders. Miguel Mena has a fantastic meet wherever he goes because he's a very good rider. You've got Mitchell Murrill coming in; he's been second at the Fair Grounds a couple of times. It's not like it's going to be easy anywhere being leading rider. And you've got Corey and you've got Brian. You got Colby Hernandez. A lot of guys are staying in Kentucky this year.

“… The riders here win races everywhere. To me, you hope everything goes well, hopefully get on some pretty nice stock. You look at the stock that ran last year, there were a lot of good horses who went to the Breeders' Cup, a lot of good 2-year-olds that broke their maidens at Ellis. The quality of horses in Kentucky has always been good. The quality of the maidens at Ellis Park have always been decent, but they've gotten better over the past couple of years. People don't want to go to New York and run against the heavy-heads like Todd Pletcher, Chad Brown and a couple of those guys who are always loaded. But we've got good horses. It's been very competitive the last couple of years in Kentucky with young horses and everybody kind of wanting to stay at home.”

With the exception of Churchill Downs meet-leader Tyler Gaffalione and Ricardo Santana Jr., who both will go to Saratoga for the summer, Ellis Park's jockeys' room will be much the same as the Louisville track. And Santana is riding the first two days at Ellis.

“I don't think there's ever been an Ellis Park jockey colony this deep, and I've been going to every meet since I was a kid,” said Jimmy McNerney, Ellis Park's announcer and race analyst. “Since we raised our purses and the quality of racing, every year the colony has gotten better. This is obviously the strongest one to date. You can go 12 deep in here. There's never been that many Derby and Breeders' Cup-winning jockeys at Ellis.”

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First Winner for Tourist

Kactus Kate (Tourist) became the first winner for her freshman sire (by Tiznow) at Emerald Downs Wednesday evening. Off at odds of 15-1 in her unveiling, the Oak Crest Farm homebred forced the issue on the outside in second, poked her head in front as they hit the quarter pole and kicked clear in the stretch to graduate by two lengths. Kactus Kate is a half-sister to Sutra (Meadowlake), GISW, $356,873. Tourist, winner of the 2016 GI Breeders’ Cup Mile, stands at WinStar Farm.

5th-Emerald Downs, $19,340, Msw, 7-1, 2yo, f, 4 1/2f, :52.82, ft.
KACTUS KATE (f, 2, Tourist–Desert Liaison, by Woodman) Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, $10,175. Click for the Equibase.com chart.
O/B-Oak Crest Farm LLC (Hodge) (KY); T-David B. Martinez.

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