Horse Racing News

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.

The champion 2-year-old of 2009, Lookin At Lucky will be adding blinkers Saturday when he makes his first start of the year in the Grade 2, $300,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

Hollywood Park has made severe cuts to its stakes schedule for the upcoming spring-summer meeting from April 21 to July 18, including reducing the purses of five Grade 1 races.

Rachel Alexandra had her final work for Saturday's New Orleans Ladies at Fair Grounds, going a half-mile in 49 seconds there Monday. A few hours later, she drew post 2 in a field of five fillies and mares in the 1 1/16-mile race.

Zenyatta had just completed a six-furlong workout at Hollywood Park on Friday morning when trainer John Shirreffs looked at his stopwatch and grinned.