Tag: Racing

This week's Grade 1 action in Japan is at the Hanshin Racecourse, where the 47th running of the Queen Elizabeth II Cup will be run on Sunday (Nov. 13). The race was established back in 1976 to commemorate the late Queen Elizabeth's visit to Japan in 1975, and was originally a 2,400 meter race for 3-year-old fillies. With the introduction of the Grade 1 Shuka Sho in 1996, it opened up the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup to older fillies and mares. It became an international Grade 1 in 1999, and this year the race will have its first runner from overseas since the great Snow Fairy won the race for a second time in 2011. Ireland's Magical Lagoon, this year's Irish Oaks winner, arrived in Japan late last month and is going through her preparations for the race.

There have been 22 nominations for this Sunday's big race, including Magical Lagoon, and so the maximum field size of 18 runners can be expected. It's sometimes been a difficult race to predict the outcome of, with just one first favorite winning in the past decade, while third favorites have won four times in that same time period. Six 4-year-olds have won in the last ten years, and Akai Ito caused an upset last year as the tenth favorite, but was a 4-year-old then. The race is run over 2,200 meters on the inner turf course at Hanshin, and weights are set at 56kg for 4-year-olds and up, while 3-year-olds carry 54kg.

A couple of races leading into this year's Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup have been the Grade 2 Sankei Sho All Comers at Nakayama in September, and the Grade 1 Shuka Sho run at Hanshin in October. Record time for the race is 2 minutes 10.3 seconds, set by Lucky Lilac in 2020. This year's winner's check is JPY130 million (just over USD1 million).

The Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup is Race 11 on the Sunday card at Hanshin, with a post time locally of 15.40. Final declarations and the barrier draw will be available later in the week.

Here's a look at some of the fillies and mares expected to be in the line-up:

Magical Lagoon: The 3-year-old daughter of Galileo, trained by Jessica Harrington, won the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot as well as the Group 1 Irish Oaks before finishing fifth in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks last out. She heads into the Queen Elizabeth II Cup after arriving in Japan late last month.

“She's definitely woken up from the last two days—she's come forward both days and doing the starting stalls yesterday—she knows it's coming close to the race day,” said Kate Harrington. “Today, she had a little trot on the grass and (rider) Zara (Caitlyn Nelson) said she was moving really really well. She also did a lap of nice canter. I couldn't pull her up so I'm very happy with her. She seemed to love the grass, you can see that she was striding out really well on it. We're very happy with everything she's doing. Shane Foley arrives tomorrow so we're going to do a stronger piece, good breeze, on dirt tomorrow. In Ireland, we only work on grass, maybe, once a month, and the dirt here is very close to our gallop at home, so we're keeping it very similar to the way we train her in Ireland.”

Daring Tact: The champion filly of 2020 is now a 5-year-old, and she is looking for her first win since those great days when she was a 3-year-old. She was a beaten favorite last time when she finished sixth in the Grade 2 Sankei Sho All Comers over 2,200 meters at Nakayama in September, but trainer Haruki Sugiyama remains upbeat on the mare.

“She had a short break at the farm after her last race,” he said. “In recent work since returning to the stable, she's worked well uphill and is better for her training. I thought she ran well in her last race, but she should improve on that this time,” the trainer said.

Jockey Kohei Matsuyama takes the ride once more, having ridden the horse in all of her eleven starts to date.

Stunning Rose: The 3-year-old filly ran a strong race to claim the Grade 1 Shuka Sho last time, and she'll carry 54kg this time with her age allowance. With four wins from her last five starts, and a win strike rate of 50%, there's every chance she can add another victory to her name here.

Trainer Tomokazu Takano said: “She got a good start last time and found a good early position. I have to give her credit for her racing sense and the ability that goes with it.”

Jockey Ryusei Sakai has won on her every time he's ridden her, and will be hoping she can give him another JRA Grade 1 win, after having scored his first ever top-level win last time aboard the filly.

Geraldina: Maturing nicely as a 4-year-old filly by Maurice, she demonstrated her ability last time when winning the Grade 2 Sankei Sho All Comers at Nakayama in September. It'll just be her second start in a Grade 1, but trainer Takashi Saito thinks she is very capable.

“I was pleased with the way things went in her last race, which included getting a position early,” he said. “She's a lot more developed now, and she's a lot better at taking the bit and finding a good rhythm in her races,” the trainer said.

Helping Geraldina's chances will be the services of visiting jockey Cristian Demuro.

Win Marilyn: She's only had fifteen career starts and tends to be a little off the radar, but the 5-year-old mare by Screen Hero has won five times and is coming off a third-place finish in the Grade 2 Sapporo Kinen over 2,000 meters in August.

Trainer Takahisa Tezuka commented: “It was a strong pace in the Sapporo Kinen last time, but she did well up against male horses, in particular the winner. She had a break at the farm afterwards, but back in work now she's been moving well.”

Jockey Damian Lane was snapped up to ride the horse as soon as connections knew he was returning to Japan this autumn.

Namur: After her big runs in the Grade 1 Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) and the Grade 1 Shuka Sho, where she finished third and second respectively, the filly by Harbinger seems to have reached another level in her career.

Trainer Tomokazu Takano is spoiled for choice over her and his other runner, Stunning Rose, and recently commented on Namur: “She's filled out a lot more and was 20kg heavier for her last race, the Shuka Sho. I think with the relatively short time between races this time, she'll be able to keep her condition and the power she showed in her last run.”

Izu Jo no Kiseki: The 5-year-old mare by Epiphaneia has won her last two races, the latest being the Grade 2 Ireland Trophy Fuchu Himba Stakes, when she got up to beat Sodashi right on the line. She seems in very good form, and will be looking to improve on her fifth-place finish in this race last year.

Comments taken from assistant trainer Tomonori Kanaori were: “Her autumn campaign has begun with this race as her target. She ran a good race last time against strong opponents, and she can improve more. She'll come on for that run, and her fifth-place finish in the race last year wasn't a bad effort.”

With jockey Yasunari Iwata picking up a suspension, Christophe Lemaire is set to ride Izu Jo no Kiseki.

Win Kiitos: A pretty consistent mare, Win Kiitos has finished in the first three 16 times from 23 starts, with her number of wins at five. She was last seen finishing third to Geraldina in the Grade 2 Sankei Sho All Comers at Nakayama in September.

Trainer Yoshitada Munakata said: “She got to run her style of race last time when finishing third. She doesn't have a closing turn of foot, so it's better if she's well up with the pace. She's been at the stable since, but is well, and we'll build up her training from now.”

Terzetto: The 5-year-old mare by Deep Impact might find it hard in a Grade 1, but she won her last race, the Grade 3 Queen Stakes over 1,800 meters at Sapporo in July. She finished eleventh in last year's Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup, and trainer Shoichiro Wada is preparing her for another run in the race this year.

“She's looking well and coming along nicely. She does need a bit more work, but she should be fine going into the race,” the trainer commented.

The post Irish Oaks Winner Magical Lagoon Headlines Japan’s QEII Cup appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

There were enough storylines in this weekend's National Steeplechase Association 16-race tripleheader in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia to fill a full chapter in the NSA's 2022 yearbook.

At the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup Races in Unionville, veteran timber star Mystic Strike made magic one more time, capturing his third Hunt Cup and topping the $300,000 career earnings mark to cap an illustrious steeplechase career that began in 2016. Locally owned and trained by Upland Partners and Todd McKenna, Mystic Strike, now 13, engineered a come-from-behind victory in the three-horse field, reeling in Ballybristol Farm's pro-tem leader Mercoeur and holding off Charlie Fenwick's Royal Ruse to score by two lengths in the testing four-mile fixture under jockey Gerard Galligan. After the race, Mystic Strike's team said their star may not be ready to call it a career just yet.

At Montpelier in Virginia, Gillian Johnston's Song for Someone, a German-bred 7-year-old who won eight races in Europe before coming to the U.S. this summer to try Grade 1 competition, pulled away late to score by about 10 lengths in the $60,000 Noel Laing stakes over Montpelier's unique live brush fence course. The victory was the first in three mounts for new 23-year-old NSA rider Nathan Brennan, a veteran of 127 jump race starts in the UK.

Unfortunately, tragedy struck moments later as Song for Someone was returning to the winner's circle when he collapsed and died after suffering a medical crisis. National Steeplechase Association safety committee chairman Reynolds Cowles, who was one of the attending veterinarians at the meet, reported that Song for Someone pulled up immediately and initially looked to be overheating.

“I was on him quickly and we started cooling him, but within 30 seconds it was apparent he was expiring and died very quickly. We will await the necropsy results from the Marion duPont Medical Center where he was sent. The most common cause of this incident is a ruptured aorta or other large vessel. I would not speculate and we will have to await the findings.”

On a happier note, Sandra Webb, the longtime assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Jack Fisher before venturing out on her own, earned her first victory as a conditioner when she saddled Riverdee Stable's Seizing the Dream, ridden by Barry Foley, to a 14-length triumph in the finale at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga., a $20,000 maiden claiming hurdle.

Also at Callaway, in the richest race of the afternoon, Sonny Via's Welshman, under Graham Watters, unleashed a late rally to defeat Atlantic Friends Racing's Theocrat by 2 ¼ lengths in the final novice hurdle stake of the season, the $75,000 Aflac Supreme.

Leslie Young secured the 2022 training title and, along with Keri Brion, continued their year-long dominance in the standings. Of the 16 races run this weekend, Young and Brion won nine. At Callaway, Young enjoyed three straight trips to the winner's circle (all with Freddie Procter aboard), with Leipers Fork Steeplechasers' Court Ruler in the $20,000 steeplethon; Tom Rice and Ashwell Stable's Booby Trap in the $15,000 handicap for horses rated at 120 or less and ridden by amateur or apprentice riders; and Potter Group USA, Gaskells Waste Services, and Ashwell Stable's Uco Valley, who captured the $30,000 maiden hurdle. She also took the $60,000 Noel Laing stakes with the ill-fated Song for Someone at Montpelier along with a $15,000 maiden claimer with Charlie Fenwick's Arrowheart.

Brion countered with three victories at Montpelier and another in the training-flat contest at Unionville, which does not count in the standings. The Montpelier winners were Sanna Neilson and John Huganir's He'll Do in the $30,000 handicap for horses rated at 115 or less; Hudson River Farms' Modus Operandi in the $30,000 maiden hurdle; and R and K Racing's Molly Fantasy in the $50,000 Montpelier Cup filly and mare stakes. Jordan Wycoff's Summer Anthem was victorious in the Athenian Idol flat race.

With only four opportunities remaining in the season, at Charleston on Sunday, Young holds an insurmountable 36 to 30 advantage. Jack Fisher is in third, with 21 wins. It is Young's first title.

Similarly, teen riding sensation Parker Hendriks locked down his first championship in only his third year on the NSA circuit. As first-call rider for Keri Brion, Hendriks rode all three of Brion's winners at Montpelier, giving him 24 (in 92 mounts) for the year, seven more than Freddie Procter, who had a remarkable year himself, earning those victories in only 48 mounts.

Full results can be found here: https://nationalsteeplechase.com/racing/

The post Old Warrior Prevails: 13-Year-Old Timber Star Mystic Strike Captures Third Hunt Cup appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

ZWP Stable, Inc. and Non Stop Stable's Malibu Beauty, exiting a runner-up finish in the Maryland Million Distaff for a second straight year, goes up against the likes of graded-stakes placed Hybrid Eclipse and Beguine as she chases a fourth career stakes victory in Saturday's $100,000 Thirty Eight Go Go at Laurel Park.

The 12th running of the 1 1/16-mile Thirty Eight Go Go for fillies and mares 3 and up is the last of three stakes on a 10-race program following the $100,000 Smart Halo for 2-year-old fillies and $100,000 James F. Lewis III for 2-year-olds, both sprinting six furlongs.

First race post time is 12:15 p.m.

A Maryland homebred daughter of Buffum, the 4-year-old Malibu Beauty set reasonable fractions for the first half-mile of the seven-furlong Distaff Oct. 22 but could not hold off favored Fille d'Esprit, beaten 1 ½ lengths. She finished behind Hello Beautiful's history-making run in the 2021 Distaff, where she became just the seventh horse with three Maryland Million wins.

“She ran a really big race in the Distaff. [Fille d'Esprit] is just really good and it was tough beating her. We had our chance and she just outran us to the wire, but it looked like we were second-best in there,” trainer Gary Capuano said.

“We were trying to win, but what are you going to do? A better horse beat you, that's all. No excuses there,” he added. “She had things her own way, she got a decent pace, she was controlling the pace and just got outkicked to the wire.”

It was the third runner-up finish in six starts this year for Malibu Beauty to go along with two wins, both in Delaware Park stakes – the 1 1/16-mile George Rosenberger Memorial Oct. 1 and the one-mile Peach Blossom July 6. Both races were rained off the grass to the main track, capturing a muddy Rosenberger by eight lengths.

“She's had a really nice year. She's done really well,” Capuano said. “She's matured a lot. Early on, we weren't sure. We thought she would run two turns, but early in her 3-year-old year she just kind of didn't finish the way we anticipated. Since then she's matured and gotten a little better.

“Actually, the two turns seems to be a better race for her. She's quick enough. She'll rate if you need her. She can sustain that run and she's done real well,” he added. “Now that she's matured it seems like going a route suits her a little better.”

Malibu Beauty has two wins, two seconds and a third in nine career tries at Laurel including her first stakes victory in the six-furlong Miss Disco against fellow Maryland-bred/sired horses last summer. She will break from the rail in a field of eight under jockey Jorge Ruiz.

“We're looking to run this weekend with her and then possibly another race and then give her some time off and bring her back next year. That's kind of the plan,” Capuano said. “She's run hard already and she's done great. We weren't in a hurry to get her back as a 4-year-old because that typically can be their toughest year, but she's handled it well. As long as she's good, we'll give her some time this winter and then start her back in the spring.”

Hybrid Eclipse will be making her fifth start since joining fall meet-leading trainer Brittany Russell this spring. She ran third off a 3 ½-month layoff in the 1 1/16-mile Obeah June 8 at Delaware Park, then was a front-running 3 ¾-length winner of Laurel's one-mile Caesar's Wish July 2, after which she was purchased by The Elkstone Group's Stuart Grant.

Russell entered but scratched the 4-year-old Paynter filly in the Nov. 4 Turnback the Alarm (G3) at Aqueduct, won by Battle Bling in her first start since taking the Oct. 1 Twixt at Laurel. Hybrid Eclipse was third behind multiple Grade 1 winner Nest in Aqueduct's Oct. 9 Beldame (G2), and has three wins and a second in four tries at Laurel.

“It's home field advantage,” Russell said. “You sort of have to feel these races out sometimes and see who's going where. After further review I spoke with Stuart and the group and we decided this time, let's try and stay home and win one.

“We were proud of her last race. She got up for third and got her graded-stakes placing, and that was sort of the goal going up there. She picked up a nice check and she came out of the race great,” she added. “She's just thriving right now. Getting back home, she likes Laurel so hopefully all the stars align coming out of that last race.”

Russell's husband, jockey Sheldon Russell, gets the call from outermost Post 8.

“It was never necessarily the goal when she first came to me to run in the Obeah as her first run for us, and she stepped up and ran huge that day. It was just really nice to see,” Russell said. “She's getting good at the right time, and we're going to run with it.”

Charles Matses' homebred Beguine is entered to make her first start since joining trainer Edward T. 'Ned' Allard following a fifth-place finish in a seven-furlong allowance Oct. 7 at Keeneland. The chestnut Gun Runner filly broke her maiden by 2 ½ lengths in March and was beaten a neck when second in the April 2 Fantasy (G2), both 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn Park.

Beguine's Keeneland run was her first race since fading to 12th after setting the pace in the Black-Eyed Susan (G2) May 20 at historic Pimlico Race Course. Jevian Toledo gets the riding assignment from Post 4.

“She was in Kentucky and she had a couple minor mishaps that prevented her from probably running much, much better than she did. The owner, who I've trained for for over 40 years, decided that maybe racing in this area might be a little bit easier for her. I'm not so sure that this race is going to be much softer than what she's run against,” Allard said. She's been training super. I like what I've seen of her so far.”

Bred in Maryland by Spendthrift Farm and owned and trained by Mario Serey Jr., Breviary has finished off the board in back-to-back stakes starts, the Twixt and Maryland Million Distaff. The 5-year-old Super Ninety Nine mare beat both Malibu Beauty and Hybrid Eclipse in the 1 1/16-mile Timonium Distaff Aug. 27, contested around three turns at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.

Completing the field are New York shipper Baby Man, a winner of two straight for trainer Rudy Rodriguez; Berate, trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey and exiting a 1 ¾-length allowance win going 1 1/8 miles Oct. 2 at Churchill Downs; Champagne Toast, a Laurel allowance winner last out Sept. 30 at the Thirty Eight Go Go distance; and multiple stakes-placed Click to Confirm.

The Thirty Eight Go Go honors the two-time Maryland-bred champion bred and trained by Hall of Famer King Leatherbury. Eight of her 10 career wins came in stakes including the Gardenia (G2), Tempted (G3) and Maryland Million Lassie in 1987 and three consecutive runnings of the Geisha (1988-90).

Harold Queen's Florida homebred Sheer Drama, trained by South Florida-based David Fawkes, earned her first career stakes victory in the 2014 Thirty Eight Go Go before going on to become a three-time Grade 1 winner with more than $1.6 million in purse earnings.

The post Malibu Beauty Chasing Fourth Stakes Win In Saturday’s Thirty Eight Go Go At Laurel appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post