Tag: Horse racing news

9-For-9 Assiniboia Downs Filly Seeks Perfect 10 in Canada day S.

Hidden Grace (Going Commando), a 9-for-9 Manitoba-bred, will seek a perfect 10th straight stakes victory in her 4-year-old debut Wednesday night in the $25,000 Canada Day S. at Assiniboia Downs.

Hidden Grace has raced exclusively in Manitoba (eight starts) and Alberta (one start), with five of her nine stakes victories coming against provincial-bred or sales-restricted company. Essentially, she has wrapped up every single one of her wins by the eighth pole, having never been headed in the stretch.

Her breeder and owner partnerships are comprised of some of the same people who bred and raced the hard-trying overachiever Escape Clause (Going Commando). That mare retired last autumn with 20 wins and $866,100 in earnings after emerging from small-circuit racing in Canada to win 2018 stakes at Del Mar and Santa Anita before losing only by a nose to the powerful Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute) in the 2019 GI Apple Blossom H. at Oaklawn.

Hidden Grace is owned and was bred by Cam Ziprick, Charles Fouillard and Barry Arnason. As a yearling, Ziprick consigned her to the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (Manitoba Division) sale, then bought her right back for $11,919. This transaction made her eligible to compete in the stakes program for horses sold through that auction.

In addition to her provincial- and sales-restricted stakes dominance, Hidden Grace has also won four $30,000 open stakes at Assiniboia. She’s been off since October and will make her first start for a new trainer, Murray Duncan, after being previously trained by Michael Nault in 2019 and Don Schnell in 2018.

He main competition in Wednesday’s second race, which is a 7 1/2-furlong open stakes, will come in the form of Miss Imperial (Maclean’s Music), who is also conditioned by Duncan.

Miss Imperial sports an 8-for-18 record after stints in the barns of trainers Jason Servis, Joe Sharp, and Brad Cox on the New York, New Orleans, and Oaklawn circuits. She was claimed three times for decreasing prices between last August and this April ($50,000, $40,000, $25,000), and it was Duncan who most recently dropped a slip for her at Oaklawn Apr. 11. Since shipping to Winnipeg, Miss Imperial has wired two open sprint stakes.

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Jockey Paco Lopez Looking Forward To Strong Competition At Monmouth Meet

The competition may change from one summer to the next but the goal never does for Paco Lopez. Once he arrives at Monmouth Park he does so with a single-minded objective: To be the leading rider.

With his right thumb fully healed following surgery on April 14, Lopez has his sights set on a seventh riding title when Monmouth Park's 75th season of racing gets underway on Friday, July 3.

“I want to try to win it again. I come to Monmouth Park thinking that every year,” said Lopez.

The native of Veracruz, Mexico, notched his sixth Monmouth Park jockey title a year ago, leaving him behind only Joe Bravo (13 titles) in number of titles won at the Jersey Shore oval.

But last year's finish atop the rider standings at Monmouth Park may have been his most impressive one yet. He didn't ride at the track until June 15 – six weeks after the meet started. Nik Juarez had built what looked to be a comfortable lead in the standings by then. Lopez caught and passed Juarez on the final weekend of the meet, finishing with 109 victories to Juarez's 107 in the closest jockey's race in track history.

The strong finish by Lopez included a victory aboard 14-1 shot Hunter O'Riley in the Grade 1 United Nations.

“You have to be lucky and stay healthy. But at least this time I will be there from the beginning of the meet, so maybe that will give me an extra advantage,” Lopez said. “I know I will try hard for it. Every year things change so you don't know what will happen. There are new faces, new clients and new challenges. You have to see what happens.”

Lopez will face some rigorous competition over the 37-day meet, with proven journeyman Victor Carrasaco, the 2013 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice, moving his tack from Maryland. Bravo is back as well, as are Juarez and reliable veterans Jose C. Ferrer and Chris DeCarlo, with Antonio Gallardo and Trevor McCarthy adding to the jockey room's star power. Gallardo, who had 65 mounts at Monmouth last year, has committed to full-time riding after recently capturing the jockey's title at Tampa Downs.

“The competition is very good this year,” said Lopez. “But I like competition. The competition pushes me.”

Lopez, who has more than 2,800 career wins, is coming off a career year, having set personal bests for victories (283) and earnings ($10.9 million-plus) in 2019.

He still sports a supporting brace on his right hand to help with his surgically-repaired thumb, which he fractured when he was unseated during a race on April 11 at Gulfstream Park. Lopez returned to riding on May 21, finishing third in the standings at the Gulfstream “Championship Meet” with 96 winners.

“I'm fine. I feel good. I'm ready to go,” he said. “I love being here every summer. I keep coming back because I love Monmouth and I love being in New Jersey in the summer. As long as I stay healthy I think it will be a good meet.”

The post Jockey Paco Lopez Looking Forward To Strong Competition At Monmouth Meet appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Superseding Indictments Could Be Coming In Federal Case Against Navarro, Servis, Etc.

Since the indictment of more than two dozen trainers, assistants, veterinarians, and pharmacists in connection with a horse doping ring this March, rumors have swirled that more names could be forthcoming in connection with the federal investigation. Speaking at a status conference for the case on Tuesday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Adams told U.S. District Judge Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil that a superseding indictment could be around the corner, but did not provide details as to the timing.

“We are looking seriously at superseding indictments,” said Adams. “For the moment, and I made this point at least to some defense counsel previously, the nature of what we're looking at is largely in the same kind of criminal conduct as what is in the current indictment. We're looking at expanding timeframes for certain of the conspiracies. We're looking at potentially adding different statutory charges with respect to certain of the defendants. What I do not anticipate for the moment is that those superseding indictments, if and when they come, would require the production of some substantial large set of materials not already produced to date or already in the queue of things we expect to produce.”

A superseding indictment is one which replaces an existing indictment, and could add charges against already-named defendants and/or could name new defendants.

Vyskocil reminded Adams that the court would not hold things up while the government finishes its investigation. Adams said he understood and that he would not ask to hold up the proceedings for that reason.

The charges on the current indictments, which names former top trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis, among others, focus on drug adulteration, misbranding, and conspiracy. The indictments claim a network of horsemen, veterinarians and pharmacy reps sold, distributed and used drugs in racehorses for the purpose of performance enhancement.

Other than a potential superseding indictment, there are not likely to be many updates in the case until late fall. Currently, attorneys are going through the discovery process, meaning each side is requesting and providing requested evidence in the case. Adams said he believes his office will be able to provide the last of the discovery material requested by defendants by the end of September.

Already, the office has provided some 90 gigabytes' worth of data to all defendants in three different volumes, and has fielded 20 additional individual requests. That data includes the results of 30 different search warrants, intercepted phone calls and text messages, geolocation information for various devices, email accounts, file transfer accounts, inventory lists, shipping records, veterinary records, drug promotional and marketing material, and much more. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is still extracting data from devices like cell phones and tablets seized from defendants at the time of their arrests.

After the government produces requested evidence, it is sent to a coordinating discovery attorney for organization and distribution. One defense attorney pointed out that it generally takes the coordinating discovery attorney roughly a month to process large document releases before they are given over to defense counsel, so a late September target for discovery completion means they will get a look at the last of the evidence in early November.

Vyskocil scheduled a status conference for Nov. 19. Most participants on the call agreed it would be impractical to set a trial date or motion schedule until the defense has seen all the government's evidence against their clients.

Read more about the federal indictments in this March 9 piece from the Paulick Report.

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