Yesterday and today: April 3 racing highlights
Vim won an allowance at Laurel Park on March 20. Photo by The Racing Biz.
From Staff Reports
YESTERDAY’S NEWS: THREE FOR MAGEE
Trainer Kieron Magee enjoyed a banner early afternoon Saturday at Laurel Park, sending out the winners of the day’s first three races.
In the first, his Mavericks Gun earned a dead-heat with Senor Quickie for the win against $5,000 claiming horses with Feargal Lynch up. Though sent off at 3.40-1, Mavericks Gun paid just $4.80 to backers because of the dead heat.
In the second, She Rolls and Forest Boyce cruised to a five-length win as the 6-5 favorite in a $15,000 claiming race for three-year-old fillies. She Rolls paid $4.40 to win and was claimed by conditioner Michael Gorham out of the race.
Finally, in the third, Skip the Punch and Horacio Karamanos opened a long lead and then just lasted, winning a $7,500 claiming race by a nose at 2.40-1.
Magee leads all Laurel Park trainers with 21 wins at the oval and is fourth on the money list.
Jockey Jevian Toledo also enjoyed a big day at the strip, also winning three times. His second of three wins came aboard maiden breaker Mr. Stream, a John Salzman, Sr. trainee who romped home nearly five clear in a 5 1/2 furlong turf sprint, navigating the distance in a sharp 1:02.91.
ALSO…
- Three trainers doubled up at Parx Racing yesterday. John Servis took two, including a Pennsylvania-bred allowance when the scratches of two top contenders left his Miss Avalon the clear choice, and she responded with a nine-length romp. Patricia Farro’s two wins included a maiden-breaking score for True Knockout, who won by almost five in a front-running effort. And Mertkan Kantarmaci also won two and how has three wins from eight starts as the trainer of record.
- Trainer Jeff Runco may have another good one on his hands. Heck, he might even have two. High Dive, a four-year-old Wildcat Heir filly making her career debut posted a cozy 2 1/2 length score in a maiden special weight test last night, getting the distance in a sharp 52.07 seconds while under only mild urging from jockey Arnaldo Bocachica. The runner-up, Renaissance Rosie, also trained by Runco and also making her debut, was over six lengths clear of the show horse.
LOOKING AHEAD: TODAY’S RACING
- The $47,000 allowance test that goes as race seven at Laurel Park has attracted some familiar names, Monster Sleeping foremost among them. The seven-year-old Oratory mare will make her first start of 2016 after a 2015 in which she won a pair of stakes, topped by the $123,000 Maryland Million Ladies, a race she also won in 2013. The Dale Capuano trainee is the even-money favorite in the race and will have Trevor McCarthy in the irons.
- Blame Jim (5-2) made his first visit to Parx Racing a winning one last year. Today the four-year-old Sharp Humor gelding returns to the track in a $52,000 allowance test (race 8). The Todd Pletcher trainee hasn’t won since in six races since — including tries in the Chick Lang Stakes and the G3 Jersey Shore — and he’ll be looking to recapture some of that early promise off two rough 2016 outings. Among his rivals here are Manhattan Mischief (5-1), who just missed last out against similar.
