Horse Racing News

Trainer Doug O'Neill called an audible and sent Triple Crown hopeful I'll Have Another out for a final gallop in secrecy the day before the Belmont Stakes.

Belmont Park workers have struck a tentative labor deal with the New York Racing Association to head off a possible strike on the eve of a Triple Crown bid, a union official said June 6.

Reddam Racing's I'll Have Another, bidding to become the 12th winner of the Triple Crown June 9 in the Belmont Stakes, will break from post 11. Made the 4-5 morning-line favorite, I'll Have Another will again be ridden by Mario Gutierrez.

I'll Have Another will have one more rival in the Belmont Stakes as he tries to become the first Triple Crown winner in 34 years.

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who will saddle Optimizer in the Belmont Stakes, was taken from Belmont Park to Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., June 5 after one of his horses reared up and struck him on top of his head.

Trainer Doug O'Neill said June 5 that he was holding off on relocating I'll Have Another to the barn set aside for Belmont Stakes horses at Belmont Park and that the move would now be made after morning training is over June 6.

Hansen, who won this year's Gotham and was last year's champion 2-year-old male, will not start in the June 9 Woody Stephens at Belmont Park due to a low red blood cell count.

Tickets for the Nov. 2-3 Breeders' Cup World Championships at Santa Anita Park in California went on sale to the general public June 4.

Padua Stables' homebred Rothko easily proved best under the lights in Saturday's Grade 3, $109,400 Aristides, registering his first stakes win with a 2 1/2-length victory at Churchill Downs.

Catesby W. Clay's homebred Bizzy Caroline was a horse for the course at Churchill Downs last year, and the Ken McPeek trainee needed to call on all of her local savvy to catch the front-running Heavenly Landing in Saturday night's Mint Julep Handicap.