WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) — After many weeks of glittering races for the world’s best horses, the Claiming Crown takes the U.S. racing spotlight this weekend, featuring the best of America’s workaday runners.
Internationally, the marquee event is the Group 1 Champion Stakes in Japan. Final preparations are underway for the Hong Kong International Races a week farther down the road. And in Dubai, Meydan’s season is well under way, heading for the Carnival and then World Cup night.
But back to the matter at hand:
The Claiming Crown
The Saturday card at Gulfstream Park comprises nine stakes races, none worth less than $110,000, for horses that have run for a claiming price during this calendar year or last. A couple of these events go down to horses offered for a $7,500 or lower tag. No field has fewer than 10 entrants and most have overflow fields. They come from all over the country and, while most are workaday “no names,” there’s at least one Breeders’ Cup competitor in the bunch.
The fields include horses who last raced at 17 different tracks, from Del Mar in California to Woodbine in Canada and from Fair Grounds in New Orleans to Hawthorne outside Chicago. Many of the prospective runners, for obvious reasons, are based in South Florida. Others last raced at Laurel Park in Maryland, which hosted a preview card that offered free admission to this program for winners.
One of the horses running in the $110,000 Rapid Transit, Old Times Sake, has been claimed seven times this year, for prices ranging from $6,250 to $16,000. He’ll be lining up against the likes of Stallwalkin’ Dude, who two races back was beaten less than 5 lengths in the $1.5 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
To further complicate the picture, rain is forecast in the Hallandale, Fla., area through Friday, with showers predicted to continue into Saturday, threatening an “off” main track and potential movement of the four scheduled turf races.
The program kicks off Gulfstream Park’s winter season on Saturday with a bang and presents a handicapping challenge par excellence. If you can’t be there in person, Horse Racing Radio Network (www.horseracingradio.net) will be streaming live. Check your local listings. And for a guide through the complexities of this puzzle, www.popejude.com to the rescue.
Elsewhere
Japan
The year-end spate of Group 1 features did not end with Shonan Pandora’s upset win in last Sunday’s Japan Cup. This weekend the action shifts to Chukyo Racecourse in Nagoya for Sunday’s Group 1 Champion Stakes at 1,800 meters, or about 9 furlongs, on the dirt. The field includes one foreigner, Hong Kong’s Gun Pit, and 15 locals, including defending champion Hokko Tarumae. The latter posted two wins after the Champion’s Cup, then finished fifth in the Group 1 Dubai World Cup in March. In his last race, he was beaten by Copano Rickey, who led from gate to wire in winning his second straight JBC Classic.
Trainer Katsuichi Nishiura allowed Hokko Tarume may have needed the tightener. “In the JBC Classic, he was returning to the track from a layoff, but he had gotten a lot of work and was in good shape,” Nichiura said. “But maybe his responses weren’t as sharp as they could be. I think he needs a little help after all and that last run should have done him good.” Copano Rickey’s trainer, Akira Murayama, said he likes his horse’s chances, with one provision — the same good jump he got in the last race. “It’s no good if he gets any kickback and if he can jump well and take the lead he should surely be able to give us a good race this time too,” Murayama said. Those two also will have to cope again with the horse who split them in the JBC Classic with a late move, Sound True.
Hong Kong
All three European also-rans from last weekend’s Group 1 Japan Cup have been withdrawn from the Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Vase on Dec. 13. Trip to Paris, Erupt and Ito all are out while the field gains Ensuring and Khayla. The latter was third in last year’s Vase. The 13-horse field still includes last year’s winner, the dependable internationalist Flintshire; 2013 winner Dominant; French globetrotter Cirrus des Aigles; Highland Reel, winner of this summer’s Grade I Secretariat Stakes at Arlington International Racecourse; England’s Cannock Chase, winner of the Grade I Canadian International at Woodbine; and stars from Australia, France and Germany as well as some tough local runners besides Dominant. Of the four Group 1 events on the card, this is the one most frequently won by visitors since it’s an unusual distance at Sha Tin.
The Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Mile promises to be one of the hottest events of the year, with Able Friend set to defend his title and his status at the highest reaches of the world’s milers. This will not be an easy task against the likes of French runner Esoterique, twice a Group 1 winner this season and second only to Solow in the Group 1 Queen Anne at Royal Ascot; Maurice and Fiero, first and second in the Group 1 Mile Championship in their native Japan; Mondialiste, representing England after a victory in the Grade I Woodbine Mile and a second in the Breeders’ Cup Mile; Red Dubawi, a recent Group 1 winner in Ireland; and Beauty Flame and Contentment, who both beat Able Friend in the Group 2 Jockey Club Mile in preparation for this. There are several other Hong Kong stalwarts with a chance to have an impact, too.
The Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Sprint includes Gold-Fun, runner-up in the past two editions of the Mile and newly minted as a top-level speed merchant. Also representing the home team are proven commodities like the venerable 2011 HK Sprint winner Lucky Nine, Peniaphobia, Dundonnell, Rich Tapestry and Not Listenin’tome. In recent years, invaders have had some success in this race and among those set to try this time around are Mongolian Saturday, third in both the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint and the Breeder’s Cup Turf Sprint; Green Mask, third in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint; Straight Girl, third in this race last year, winner of the recent Group 1 Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama and leading a trio of Japanese runners; and England’s hope, Sole Power, who was third in this in 2013 and victorious in the Al Quoz at Meydan in March.
Visitors beware in the Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Cup. The local runners include last year’s winner and 2014 Hong Kong Horse of the Year Designs On Rome; last year’s runner-up and 2013 Hong Kong Horse of the Year Military Attack; Dan Excel, two-time winner of the late, lamented Group 1 Singapore Airlines International Cup at Kranji; Blazing Speed, winner of the Group 1 Audemars Piguet QE II Cup over the course and distance in April; and a dangerous rival in Beauty Only. Australia’s hopes are Criterion, third in this last year and also third in this year’s Group 1 Melbourne Cup, and Lucia Valentina, a two-time Group 1 winner. Ireland is represented by Free Eagle, winner of the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot. France’s Gailo Chop won the Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes in Australia in October. Japan has four entries, headed by Staphanos and Nuevo Record.
Dubai
One Man Band played the winning tune in Thursday night’s featured Longines Master Collection handicap at Meydan, winning off easily by 7 lengths to collect his second win of the season. Sam Hitchcott rode the 4-year-old son of Pivotal. The victory was not without a downside for winning trainer Doug Watson, however, as he also saddled the previously undefeated Faulkner, who could do no better then fourth, finishing better than 11 lengths in arrears of his winning stablemate. Hopes were high for Faulkner, a 5-year-old, also by Pivotal, who won all three of his starts last season but had not run since taking a 1,400-meters handicap in January. In that race, he defeated Tamarkuz, who went on to win four straight including the Group 2 Godolphin Mile on World Cup night in March. He reportedly returned lame from Thursday’s effort.
News and notes
Frankie Dettori gets the nod for 2015 Longines World’s Best Jockey Award — by 10 points over Victor Espinoza and Ryan Moore. Four of Dettori’s five top-level wins this year came aboard Golden Horn — the Investec Derby, Coral-Eclipse, Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He also won the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot on Undrafted. But he also had four seconds and four thirds in qualifying races, boosting him to 100 points versus 90 each for Moore and Espinoza. Maxime Guyon finished fourth with 88 points. The competition scored the “Top 100″ Group 1 or Grade I races around the world as reckoned by the Longines nominating committee. Dettori will receive the award Dec. 11 during the festivities surrounding the Longines Hong Kong International Races.
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