Horse Racing News

Fast workouts are uncommon for Neil Drysdale's turf workers.

Redding Colliery is an emerging player in the nation's handicap ranks, just as his owners, James and Fitriani Hay, are emerging players on the American racing scene.

The term "good-betting race" is usually a backhanded compliment about a field with modest to below-average horses with no strong favorite.

Separately, the Juddmonte Farms of Khaled Abdullah and trainer Bill Mott have won five of the first 16 runnings of the Just a Game Handicap.

Custom for Carlos, a well-traveled colt who has run triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures at four different tracks, and Bribon, last year's Met Mile winner, are top-weighted at 118 pounds and head a field of 10 in Saturday's Grade 2 True North Handicap.

Points of Grace, Canada's champion female turf horse in 2009, is slated to make her first start since last Oct. 31 in Saturday's Grade 2, $300,000 Nassau Stakes.

Jim Gaffney Sr., the regular exercise rider of champion Thoroughbreds Secretariat and Riva Ridge, died on Thursday from pneumonia. He was 75.

A thick blanket of fog enveloped Belmont Park on Thursday morning, but as the morning wore on, it lifted, a fitting symbol of what has transpired with the New York Racing Association as its signature event, the Belmont Stakes, neared.

Last year's champion 3-year-old and Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird has been retired due to a hairline fracture, according to his owner and breeder, Dr. Kalarikkal Jayaraman.

Considering how well he ran on the front end when finishing second in the Preakness Stakes three weeks ago after drawing post 11, there is little doubt what the strategy will be for First Dude in the 142nd Belmont Stakes.