The Maryland Jockey Club has announced several national stakes as automatic qualifiers for the Preakness and other May stakes at Pimlico.
A pair of runners trained by Jeremiah O’Dwyer – Ilchester Cheetah and Cruise and Danze – are slated to contest Saturday’s Smart Halo Stakes at Laurel Park.
Stakes winners Newstome and Raging Whiskey are slated to square off in the James F. Lewis, III Stakes Saturday at Laurel Park.
Trainer Henry Walters may have only a six-horse barn, but one of those six – 2-year-old Tommy Shelby – is poised to make noise in at Laurel Park.
Laurel Park’s City of Laurel and Safely Kept Stakes, for 3-year-olds and 3-year-old fillies, are “Win and In” events for a pair of Santa Anita Grade 1s.
Dropping out of Grade 2 company, Minit to Stardom shot through a hole at the rail and cruised to an easy allowance score Friday at Laurel Park.
Excluded from the Breeders’ Cup, Miss J McKay will instead try her hand in the $100k Stewart Manor Stakes at Aqueduct on Sunday.
Minit to Stardom, a Grade 2 winner on the dirt who also owns a Laurel turf course record, returns to action in a Laurel Park allowance Friday.
The new so-called Maryland “house rules” regarding equine safety are both more – and less than that, a mixture of policies, house rules, and regulations with broad industry support.
Trainer Graham Motion skipped bigger races to run Sharing in the Selima at Laurel, which paid off when she won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.