Horse Racing News

With Uncle Mo retired, Stay Thirsty is now the top gun in Mike Repole's stable. And after a championship-caliber 3-year-old season in 2011, there are high expectations for the son of Bernardini next year.

Though Gulfstream Park opened one month earlier than usual for its winter meet last week, the graded stakes pickings are rather slim as they race through December for the first time.

Weemissfrankie will face the smallest field of her career when she starts as a heavy favorite in Saturday's $250,000 Hollywood Starlet Stakes, the last Grade 1 race of the year for 2-year-old fillies.

Rapid Redux, who set a record for horse based in the continental United States with his 20th consecutive victory last month at Mountaineer Racetrack, will take aim at another record Tuesday at Laurel Park.

The Coa family riding tradition will continue this winter when jockey Kieber Coa begins his apprentice career in the United States.

Dual Grade 1 winner Weemissfrankie, third in the Grey Goose Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies one month ago, will start in the $250,000 Hollywood Starlet Dec. 10, trainer Peter Eurton said Dec. 4.

Jockey Jorge Chavez, who was unseated during the running of the ninth race at Aqueduct Racetrack Dec. 4, will be sidelined at least five months as a result of injuries that include a broken collarbone, broken ribs, and broken vertebrae.

Home Sweet Aspen is likely bound for the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 31, which makes her appearance in Wednesday's $60,000 Cool Air Stakes at Hollywood Park a key tune-up for that major stakes.

Royal Delta, winner of the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic, has returned to the barn of trainer Bill Mott and is being pointed to the $10 million Dubai World Cup next year, Mott said on Monday.

Ancient Rome made his stakes debut a winning one, surging from between horses in the final 40 yards under jockey Joe Rocco Jr. to outfinish For Oby by a nose to capture the $100,000 Spectacular Bid Stakes.