Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Laurel opens premier meet headed in right direction
Laurel Park will begin its premier meet Friday on an up note following an extended summer season during which average daily handle increased 25.5 percent to $2.72 million.
Expanded to 33 days this year, the summer season closed Aug. 20 to make way for the Maryland State Fair meet at Timonium, which concluded its seven-day run on Labor Day. The down time gave the Laurel turf course time to mend and allowed the track crew to resurface the dirt track.
Sal Sinatra, president of the Maryland Jockey Club, plans to make good use of the 142-footwide Laurel turf course, which has six distinct running lanes. With a little cooperation from the weather, Laurel is capable of carding turf races into December.
“This is the time of year when we can really start using our turf course and getting bigger fields,” Sinatra said. “The other tracks’ courses will be winding down soon.”
The Laurel main track was recently closed eight days for training so that maintenance could take place.
“We peeled back the cushion and inspected the limestone base,” Sinatra said. “We added more material, cleaned the drains and the inside boards, stuff you can’t really do when you are racing.”
The Laurel meet will start off on a Friday-to-Sunday schedule, but will add Thursdays in October and November before cutting back to a three-day week in December.
“Monmouth will be closed and Delaware winding down,” Sinatra said. “It’s a good time of year for us.”
The fall meet will offer 44 stakes with a total value of $4.42 million. Purses at the meet will average $250,000 a day, excluding stakes.
The Grade 3, $250,000 Frank J. De Francis Dash Memorial Dash, which has been moved up from November, tops a sevenstakes day Sept. 16.
On Sept. 30, the Grade 2, $200,000 Baltimore-Washington International Turf Cup, formerly the Commonwealth Turf Cup, tops a slate of eight stakes that also includes the Grade 2, $200,000 Commonwealth Derby and the Grade 3, $150,000 Commonwealth Oaks.
Maryland Million Day is scheduled for Oct. 21. Megastakes days also are planned for Nov. 11, Dec. 9, and Dec. 30.
In addition to having six stakes, the Nov. 11 card will honor the memory of Ben’s Cat, who was euthanized in July due to complications following colic surgery just weeks after being retired at age 11 and relocated to Kentucky. Over eight seasons, Maryland-bred Ben’s Cat won 32 of 63 starts and more than $2.6 million for his owner, trainer, and breeder, King Leatherbury.
Events planned for Ben’s Cat Day include a video retrospective of his career, and an autograph session with Leatherbury and the six jockeys who rode Ben’s Cat – Horacio Karamanos (3 times), Rosemary Homeister Jr. (1), Trevor McCarthy (9), Julian Pimentel (41), Jeremy Rose (8), and Sheldon Russell (1).
There also will be a Ben’s Cat bobblehead giveaway, and his burial site near the Laurel paddock will be unveiled. Fans will be given incentives to wear orange – the color of Leatherbury’s silks – to the track that day. (Think Baltimore Orioles.)
Stronach tracks (which include Laurel) in Maryland, Florida, and California will offer a combined contest to keep fans interested on Sundays during football season, according to Sinatra. Fans will make selections on that day’s NFL games, and those picking the most winners will split $3,000.
“It’s a free contest to give people another reason to come to the track,” Sinatra said.
Sinatra hopes to open the Maryland Jockey Club’s sixth offtrack betting facility prior to Maryland Million Day in the town of Hampstead, northwest of Baltimore.
Navarro ties his own record
Jorge Navarro, who long ago locked up his fifth consecutive Monmouth Park training title, went 3 for 7 over the holiday weekend, equaling the meet record of 59 wins that he set in 2016.
Navarro also set a record for wins on a Monmouth card July 23, when he sent out five winners. Sharp Azteca, whom he trains, set a track record for 1 1/16 miles when he won the Monmouth Cup on Haskell Day in 1:40.19.
Nik Juarez, who will be riding at Belmont Park and Aqueduct this fall, has clinched his first career riding title. Coming into closing weekend, he has 70 winners, 19 more than Jose Ferrer in second.
Monmouth concludes its season this weekend with Saturday and Sunday cards. An eight-day all-turf meet will be held at the Meadowlands from Sept. 22 through Oct. 28. Racing will be held on six straight Saturday nights and the final two Sundays in September.
Parx: Glitch prompts dead heat
The first race at Parx Racing on Sunday was ruled a dead heat after the photo-finish camera malfunctioned, according to track officials. The outcome of the race has since been appealed to the Pennsylvania Racing Commission by the connections of one of the horses involved.
Promise the Sky and Joywave battled the final five-sixteenths in the mile and 70-yard race for nonwinners-of-two $7,500 claimers, with Joywave on the inside. The two horses hit the wire in a head-bobbing finish.
Because of the photo-finish malfunction, the stewards did not have a clear image of the finish on which to base their decision and, after a lengthy delay, ruled the race be deemed a dead heat.
Announcer Keith Jones, during his race call, said it appeared Promise the Sky had won the bob, and the Equibase chart footnote said the same thing. It should be noted neither Jones’s booth nor the pan camera is located directly on the finish line like the photofinish camera.
The connections of Promise the Sky, Hibiscus Stables and trainer Steve Klesaris, believe their horse won the race and have appealed the stewards’ decision.
Joywave is owned by David Jacobson and trained by Mertkan Kantarmaci.
Promise the Sky, who went off at 7-10, paid $2.40. Joywave, 8-1, paid $5.40. Both horses earned $7,800 from the $20,750 purse.
The photo-finish camera functioned properly in all other races on the card.