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Lone Star Boosts Thoroughbred Stakes Schedule By $600,000 For 2022

Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas announced Tuesday a $600,000 increase to its 2022 Thoroughbred stakes schedule, including a total of 21 races worth $2,825,000.

The highlight of the schedule is Lone Star Million Day on Memorial Day, and the marquee race on the card is the Grade 3, $400,000 Steve Sexton Mile, for 3-year-olds and up at one mile. New to this year's Lone Star Million day card will be the $100,000 guaranteed Speightstown Sprint for 3-year-olds and up going six furlongs on the dirt.

Lone Star Showcase Day will be held June 19 with five stakes worth a total of $375,000, while the Summer Turf Festival will be returning July 16 with four stakes worth a total of $750,000. Stars of Texas Day will be held July 17 with five stakes worth $425,000.

The 2022 Thoroughbred racing season will begin April 28 and conclude July 24, with total purses averaging an estimated $268,000 per day for the 48-day meet.

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Remington: Steve Asmussen Wins 17th Training Title, Danny Caldwell Named Leading Owner For 12th Time

National Racing Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen has clamped down on the training title at Remington Park, winning this meet for the sixth time in a row and 17th overall.

The training title is named the Chuck Taliaferro Award to honor one of the most prominent trainers in the early days of Remington Park. He won the training titles here in the fall of 1989 and the spring of 1990. Among the top horses he campaigned at Remington Park were multiple stakes winner No More Hard Times and Remington Park Derby (Oklahoma Derby) winner Wicked Destiny in 1990.

Danny Caldwell of Poteau, Okla., won the owner's title for the second consecutive year, giving him 12 Thoroughbred trophies in all at Remington Park. He is the track's all-time winningest owner.

With the exception of trainer Karl Broberg in 2015, Asmussen has a streak that goes back to 2007. He has won 14 of the past 15 crowns. In total, he and Donnie Von Hemel have won 29 of the 45 Thoroughbred meet titles at Remington Park, going back to 1988, the opening year. There were years in the early days that Remington raced two Thoroughbred meets the same calendar year, spring and fall.

“I'm obviously very blessed to have had all the opportunities I've had a Remington Park and I'm very thankful,” Asmussen said. “Pablo (Ocampo) has been with me to handle all the horses and he deserves a lot of the credit.”

To give an accurate representation of Asmussen's and Von Hemel's dominance at Remington Park, the all-time training titles numbers are: Asmussen at 17, Von Hemel at 12, and then there is a tie for second place with two training titles among Chuck Taliaferro, Clinton Stuart, Kenny Smith, Joe Offolter and Joe Petalino.

Asmussen currently has a huge lead in most wins in the country in 2021 with 447 through Dec. 20, according to Equibase statistics. Broberg was in second with 394. In the earnings category, Asmussen trails Brad Cox nationally, but it's a close race. Cox's horses have earned $31,516,228 and Asmussen's $30,959,351.

The amazing thing about Asmussen's last four training titles at Remington Park is that his wins began dwindling since his record 104 victories in 2018. He followed that with 83 wins in 2019, 73 in 2020 and 42 this year but somehow continues to win titles. In fact, he was an easy winner this year despite the comparatively low totals. Broberg finished second this meet, 11 wins behind Asmussen, with 31 trips to the winner's circle. The top 10 trainers were rounded out by Scott Young and Austin Gustafson tied for fourth with 26 wins, followed by Oscar Flores (22), fifth; Danny Pish (20), sixth; Kari Craddock (19), seventh; Bret Calhoun (18), eighth, and tied for ninth and tenth were Ronnie Cravens III (17) and Brent Davidson (17)

The 42 trips to the winner's circle were the fewest for a training title holder since Asmussen's 38 wins in 2013, the last time he was below this year's totals.

Since beginning his career in 1986 when he had one win from 15 starters the whole year, he has reached an all-time fantastic milestone, winning more races than any other trainer in the history of the sport. Asmussen passed Dale Baird this year. Baird had held the title for years at 9,445 wins. Asmussen has currently won 9,576.

Asmussen is a two-time winner of the Eclipse Award for trainers, the most prestigious trophy given each year in the industry. Those came in 2008 and 2009. He also has won the Breeders' Cup Classic twice, North America's richest race. He did it with Horse of the Year, Gun Runner, in 2017 and with Curlin in 2007. Curlin was named Horse of the Year in 2007 and 2008.

Caldwell has won 1,065 Thoroughbred horse races since he started in the business in 2003 when he started one horse and it didn't run first, second or third. He got $0 for that race. Since then, his biggest year came in 2017 when his horses earned $3,019,423. His top 10 finishes among owners nationally have been 2020 (7th), 2019 (8th), 2018 (4th), 2017 (4th), 2016 (5th), 2015 (4th), and 2014 (8th). His career stats show him with 5,349 starters; 1,065 wins; 863 seconds, and 739 thirds for earnings of $21,433,276, according to Equibase.

“I'm proud to say this is my home track,” Caldwell said of Remington Park. “It's a privilege to race here. It's hard to win races anywhere, but especially at Remington Park.”

Caldwell's horses won 25 races this year, eight more than runner-up End Zone Athletics' 17, trainer-owner Karl Broberg's outfit out of Mansfield, Texas. Rounding out the top 10 owners were Bryan Hawk (14), third; tied for fourth, C.R. Trout (10) and Dream Walkin Farms (10); tied for sixth with eight each were Colleen Davidson, Michael and Linda Mazoch, and JT Stables, and tied for ninth, Steve Williams, Chad and Josh Christensen, and Caden Arthur with seven apiece.

Caldwell's best year, winning a title at Remington, came in 2016 with 50 wins and $862,830. His horses this year made $636,761. He has won training titles by wins in 2021, 2020, 2011-2018, 2010 and 2008.

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Fast Boat Is ‘Living His Best Life’ While Working Towards Second Career With Rosie Napravnik

After an 11th place finish in the 2021 Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, multiple graded stakes winner Fast Boat has retired from racing. He has since taken up residence at record breaking female jockey Rosie Napravnik's Four Ponds Farm in Simpsonville, Ky..

Napravnik became the first female jockey to ever win the Kentucky Oaks in 2012 with Believe You Can. She was also the first female jockey to win more than one Breeders' Cup race, along with many other notable achievements. With lifetime earnings of $71,426,717 Napravnik is undoubtedly one of the most successful female jockeys the industry has seen, and she continues to pursue her passion for Thoroughbreds outside of the racetrack.

Since Napravnik's retirement from racing following the 2014 Breeders' Cup where she won the G1 Distaff aboard Untapable, she has started a new career of retraining off the track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs). In Napravnik's operation, the owners who send their racehorses to her continue to financially support them throughout their second careers as she offers owners the experience of Thoroughbred ownership from an entirely new perspective. This is the case with the newest addition to her herd, Fast Boat, who has spent time at her farm previously during his career following big performances on the track.

“He's a very happy horse in general, but he was the type where he could not wait to go out every single day,” Napravnik said about Fast Boat's personality. “It never wore off the entire time he would spend here (Four Ponds Farm). He was just as happy to go out every day, always ears forward. He loved the company of a pony. We have several ponies here so they all get to play the role of being the life coach for the racehorses. It relieves the anxiety for the racehorses when they're turned out.”

The 6-year-old gelding is a son of City Zip out of the Lemon Drop Kid mare, Yellow Boat. He was claimed by Joe Sharp in 2018 and went on to win the G2 Twin Spires Turf Sprint Stakes as well as the G3 Troy Stakes in 2021. He ended his career with a record of 10-1-3 from 28 starts and $706,349 in earnings. Fast Boat is now turned out with Napravnik's herd of “lifers” and will get a couple of months off before figuring out what his second career is.

“He's living his best life being turned out 24/7,” Napravnik mentioned. “He's kind of a boss out there, which I wasn't really sure he'd be. There's one pony out there and the pony doesn't really get grain so he's kind of the hungriest one, but now Fast Boat is the hungriest one, which is not usually the case when you turn a Thoroughbred out 24/7 for the first time. I would say he's adjusting well.”

Once Fast Boat does begin training for his second career, Napravnik said that he will follow the same routine that all of her new horses do.

“I start all their training off with flatwork, but first I take them all hacking and they go through water, up banks, and through ditches,” Napravnik said. “They do that until they can do it on the buckle and they're chilled out and trusting of any of these new questions that you're asking of them. So that's initially what I do to wipe the slate clean. It sort of opens their mind to the idea of 'we don't have anywhere to go.' They're in such a routine during their life on the track that they're used to always having something to do, so I let them figure out that we're just out here to enjoy ourselves. Then we start flatwork and I kind of let them take me from there.”

Napravnik is a regular competitor at the annual Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover at the Kentucky Horse Park. She has finished in the top ranks of multiple divisions and has her sights set on entering Fast Boat in the 2022 Makeover. This would not be Napravnik's first time entering with a high-profile racehorse, as she competed at the 2019 makeover with 2016 Kentucky Derby contender My Man Sam in the show hunters division.

“I have been itching to train a horse for barrel racing at the Makeover, which I know nothing about, so it would be kind of a fun experience to do that,” Napravnik said about Fast Boat's potential entry. “He's kind of built more like a Quarter Horse. He's got a huge hind end and he's built kind of downhill, so we might think about that. Like I said, he'll kind of tell me as we go.”

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Weekend Lineup: Pegasus Prep Day At Gulfstream

This weekend's horse racing action is highlighted by a quartet of graded stakes race at Gulfstream Park on Saturday, featuring preps for the track's Pegasus World Cup card in late January. The best gambling race on the card is likely the Grade 2 Ft. Lauderdale Stakes on the grass, which drew an overflow field of 13 to contest nine furlongs.

In addition, Saturday will feature a pair of $500,000 stakes for New York-bred 2-year-olds at Aqueduct, and a pair of $100,000 stakes races for Maryland-bred or -sired 2-year-olds at Laurel Park.

Prior to all that, Kentucky Derby points are on the line in the Remington Park Springboard Mile on Friday night in Oklahoma.

Saturday

1:54 p.m. – G3 Suwannee River Stakes at Gulfstream

As Pegasus World Cup Day looms on the horizon, owners Chris Pallas and Harvey Rothenberg and trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. are hoping to navigate Saturday's $100,000 Suwannee River (G3) as a way to the inaugural $500,000 Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf (G3) next month.

Shifty She became a graded-stakes winner in her most recent start, a front-running 1 ½-length triumph in the one-mile Noble Damsel (G3) Oct. 23 at Belmont Park. It followed a summer and fall away from her South Florida home that included a third in the Aug. 8 De La Rose at Saratoga and fourth in the Sept. 11 Ladies Turf (G3) at Kentucky Downs, beaten 1 ¾ lengths each time.

There was some consideration given to training Shifty She up to the Pegasus program, scheduled this year for Jan. 29, but the Suwannee River gives the 5-year-old Gone Astray mare six weeks to the 1 1/16-mile Filly & Mare Turf and comes at a distance where she is 3-for-6 lifetime.

Sanford Bacon and Patrick Biancone Racing's Kelsey's Cross will be seeking her first win in five starts since beating Shifty She in April. The 5-year-old mare, trained by Biancone, ran third in the 2019 Wonder Again (G3) at Belmont as a 2-year-old, won the 2020 Ginger Punch and ran third in the Hillsborough (G2) as a 3-year-old, and has placed in five other stakes. Sixth in a one-mile handicap Nov. 27 at Gulfstream, her only dirt start in 23 career races, she ran fifth in last year's Suwannee River behind multiple Grade 1 winner Starship Jubilee.

Other graded winners in the field are Alms, Keeper of Time and Sweet Melania. Godolphin's Alms, a homebred daughter of City Zip, won her first four career races including the six-furlong Matron (G3) at Belmont and one-mile Jimmy Durante (G3) at Del Mar in 2019 to cap her juvenile campaign. She is winless in her last four, spread out from February 2020 to Nov. 25 at Fair Grounds, where she was beaten a neck when second in the Joseph R. Peluso Memorial. During that time she also ran third by a head in the July 2020 Appalachian (G2), which preceded a 15-month layoff.

Suwannee River Entries

3:28 p.m. – G3 Sugar Swirl Stakes at Gulfstream

Frank's Rockette will be on a quest to add another graded-stakes success to her resume Saturday at Gulfstream Park, where the Frank Fletcher Racing Operations Inc.'s homebred filly scored the first stakes victory of her racing career nearly two years ago. The 4-year-old daughter of Into Mischief is scheduled to race seven other fillies and mares in the $100,000 Sugar Swirl (G3), a six-furlong sprint.

OXO Equine LLC's Center Aisle will seek her first stakes victory Saturday while coming off a pair of impressive of optional claiming and allowance victories at Churchill Downs and Keeneland in her first two starts for trainer Paulo Lobo. Formerly trained by Chad Brown, the 4-year-old daughter of Into Mischief finished third behind Frank's Rockette in both the Victory Ride (G3) and Prioress (G2) last year.

Breeze Easy LLC's Bronx Beauty, who lost last year's Sugar Swirl by a head, is slated to return in the six-furlong sprint. The 5-year-old stakes-winning daughter of Liaison is coming off an Sept. 6 allowance victory at Monmouth Park.

Arindel's Quinoa Tifah, Cumberland Stables' Music City Star and Team Hanley and Paul Braverman's Loriloupies are also entered in the Sugar Swirl after finishing first, second and third, respectively, in an optional claiming allowance at Gulfstream.

Sugar Swirl Entries

3:59 p.m. – G3 Harlan's Holiday Stakes at Gulfstream

Repole Stable's Fearless will make a bid to return to graded stakes-winning form while making his second start off a six-month layoff in Saturday's $150,000 Harlan's Holiday (G3) at Gulfstream Park. Fearless is coming off a second-place finish in the Nov. 21 Miami Gardens overnight handicap, in which he lost for the first time in fourth starts at Gulfstream. The 5-year-old Ghostzapper gelding was the even-money favorite in his first start since finishing third in the May 14 Pimlico Special (G3).

Multiple graded-stakes winner Mighty Heart looms as a formidable opponent for Fearless in the Harlan's Holiday. The Lawrence Cordes homebred is coming off a front-running victory in the Autumn (G2) at Woodbine after finishing fourth in the Durham Cup (G3). The 4-year-old son of Dramedy won the 2020 Queen's Plate over Woodbine's Tapeta surface before capturing the Prince of Wales on dirt at Fort Erie. The Ontario-bred colt won the Blame Stakes at Churchill Downs, finished second in the West Virginia Governor's Cup (G3) at Mountaineer, and finished third in an optional claiming allowance at Keeneland in his other starts on dirt.

Owner/trainer Steve Budhoo's Eye of a Jedi, who finished second in last year's Harlan's Holiday, will seek to improve on a trio of recent starts at a mile around one turn. The 6-year-old gelding won the 1 1/8-mile Ghostzapper (G3) around two turns with Javier Castellano aboard last year. The Hall of Fame rider will return aboard Eye of a Jedi Saturday.

James Woodruff's Blue Steel, winner of the Claiming Crown Iron Horse Kent Sterling Memorial; Gary Barber, Wachtel Stable, Peter Deutsch and Pantofel Stable LLC's South Bend, an optional claiming allowance winner at Churchill Downs; and Calumet Farm's Twenty Twice round out the field.

Harlan's Holiday Entries

4:32 p.m. – G2 Ft. Lauderdale Stakes at Gulfstream

Already with a handful of prospects for next month's $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1), a race he won in 2020, trainer Mike Maker may wind up strengthening his hand following Saturday's $200,000 Fort Lauderdale (G2) at Gulfstream Park.

Maker will send out two of the seven horses he nominated to the Fort Lauderdale, Atone and Media Blitz, as well as supplemental entry Order and Law. Three Diamonds Farm's Atone is a 4-year-old Into Mischief gelding with four wins in nine career tries on grass, two of them coming in his last three starts, most recently a 2 ½-length optional claiming allowance triumph Nov. 21 at Aqueduct.

Media Blitz will be making his first start since Maker spent $100,000 to claim the 4-year-old Medaglia d'Oro colt for himself out of a third-place finish Nov. 26 at Del Mar. He has faced graded company twice previously this year, finishing off the board in the Del Mar Handicap (G2) and John Henry Turf Championship (G2).

Order and Law was also claimed at Del Mar, this time for $80,000 on behalf of Paradise Farms Corp. The 5-year-old gelding – whose grandsire, Shakespeare, was a multiple Grade 1 winner on turf – ran fifth in the Oct. 2 City of Hope Mile (G2) in his first start for Maker. He rebounded to finish second by a neck at odds of 10-1 behind favored Neptune's Storm in the one-mile Lure, also at Santa Anita.

Ft. Lauderdale Entries

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