Yesterday and today: April 4 racing highlights
Vim won an allowance at Laurel Park on March 20. Photo by The Racing Biz.
From Staff Reports
YESTERDAY’S NEWS: PRECIADO OUT WITH A BANG
Trainer Ramon Preciado is scheduled to begin a 90-day suspension on April 7 after getting five — five! — clenbuterol positives in 2015, the Daily Racing Form reports.
Preciado also had a positive for dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) last year. His horses won 169 races with purse earnings north of $5.5 million in 2015.
That doesn’t mean he’s stopped winning in the meantime, though, and on Sunday he struck again when Poderosa, a horse he trains for Barbara Hopkins, won an entry-level allowance for Pennsylvania-breds at Parx Racing by over six lengths in a sharp 1:17.60 for 6 1/2 furlongs.
Poderosa had toiled without distinction for trainer Butch Reid in 2015, winning once in 18 starts, and prior to this year had just two career wins from 37 tries. The City Sharpster mare’s best Brisnet speed figure in 2015 was a 78.
Preciado claimed her out of her final 2015 start and gave her some time off; she didn’t make a start until March 1 of this year, when she beat $7,500 claimers by over seven lengths while earning a 91 speed fig. And yesterday, she reprised that effort, leading at every call and romping home under what the chart termed a “brisk hand ride” from jockey Hector Caballero.
ALSO…
- Jockey Trevor McCarthy won three races at Laurel Park on Sunday, including a pair of maiden special weight tilts with debut runner Blu Moon Ace for trainer Larry Murray and Pop Rocks Lady for trainer Graham Motion. McCarthy also took an allowance race with Monster Sleeping.
- Two trainers won two each at Parx Racing on Sunday. Marcos Zulueta took the first race with Dean of Salsa and the sixth, a maiden claiming affair with Grace H. Ed Coletti, meanwhile, took a maiden claimer with No Game No Fame in race two and doubled up in race three with Chac Mool.
- One handicapping note from Parx: the charts note a strong wind blowing towards the horses as they ran up the backstretch in the first part of the card, specifically in races two and five.
LOOKING AHEAD: TODAY’S RACING
- There’s a lengthy 11-race card on the docket at Parx Racing today, the only track in the region with live racing.
- In the seventh, the first of two maiden special weight tests for Pennsylvania-breds, this one for fillies and mares, She’s Chubs (5-2) gets the nod as the favorite. The Scott Lake-trained daughter of Albert the Great was second against maiden claimers on debut, and here she’ll have to contend with Hearty Jones (7-2) and Heatherly (4-1), second and third, respectively, against similar last out.
- In the next, for PA-bred three-year-old maidens, Smarty Mr D gets the nod as the 5-2 favorite; the John Servis trainee has been second in both prior starts. Former Bob Baffert trainee Police Escort ships east to make his first start in the barn of Jason Servis and is, at 7-2, the second choice.
- Almighty Storm (2-1) is favored in the 10th, a second level allowance/optional claimer, after having beaten similar in two of her last three. Among the Scott Lake trainee’s most intriguing rivals is Rare Medal (9-2). Trained by Louis Linder, the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro thrashed entry-level allowance foes by 13 over the strip three back. She found the going a little tough two back in the Nellie Morse, disappointed last out, and will try to regain her winning form here.
