Horse Racing News on March 10, 2010

As any handicapper knows by now, Daily Racing Form keeps detailed trainer statistics. First-time starters, claimers, blinkers on, so on and so forth.

WinStar Farm has had considerable success over the years using the major 3-year-old races at Tampa Bay Downs as preps on the road to the Kentucky Derby.

The elusive first stakes win arrived for Striking Dancer in the Grade 2 La Canada Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 14.

Saturday's $300,000 Gulfstream Park Handicap, on the other hand, drew an evenly matched field of 11 older horses topped by Grasshopper, This Ones for Phil, Harlem Rocker, and Cool Coal Man.

Ernie Paragallo, a onetime leading owner in New York whose racing privileges were revoked last year, was found guilty on 33 counts of animal cruelty by a Greene County district judge on Wednesday.

Noble's Promise has raced exclusively on synthetic and turf surfaces to this point in his career, but there are reasons to believe that the Grade 1 winner might be an even better horse on dirt.