Champagne S.

The Belmont at the Big A Fall Meet will offer 40 added-money events worth nearly $8.8 million, officials from the New York Racing Association announced Saturday. Due to ongoing capital improvements at Belmont Park, the fall meeting will be staged for the second straight season at Aqueduct from Thursday, Sept. 14 through Sunday, Oct. 29, and will feature three Grade I events and a half-dozen 'Win and You're In' qualifiers in a variety of Breeders' Cup divisions. The GIII Fasig-Tipton Jockey Club Oaks over 11 furlongs on turf, the final...

'TDN Rising Star' Blazing Sevens (Good Magic), dismissed at 85-10 off a third-place run in Saratoga's GI Hopeful S. Sept. 5 over similarly sloppy conditions, splashed past his foes in the lane to become the first highest-level winner for his freshman sire (by Curlin). In the process, he earned an automatic spot in the starting gate for the Nov. 4 GI Fanduel Breeders' Cup Juvenile--a race his sire won handily in 2017 while still a maiden and coming off a close second in the Champagne. Well-regarded and well-bred Verifying (Justify)...

There are but five weeks remaining between now and the Breeders' Cup at Keeneland Nov. 4 and 5, and many of horse racing's biggest names will take in their final prep races over the course of the next couple of weekends. Better than 40 graded stakes, the majority of which have championship weekend implications, are set to take place from sea to shining sea, including 21 'Win and You're In' events offering the winners an all-expenses paid trip to the Bluegrass. Santa Anita stages one of the four Breeders' Cup...

Trainer Michelle Lovell, who sent out 'TDN Rising Star' Damon's Mound (Girvin) to win Saturday's GII Saratoga Special S., said Sunday that she was not ruling out either the seven-furlong GI Hopeful S. Sept. 5 or the Oct. 5 GI Champagne S. at the Belmont at the Big A meet going a one-turn mile, but is more inclined to get the colt some two-turn route experience for his next appearance. "Everything's on our radar," said Lovell. "We'll see how he is. He's never had a bad day, so I don't...

Let's get one thing straight, right off the bat. Even setting aside the fact that our industry--with the complicity of the media--devotes disproportionate attention and resources to freshman sires, July is way too early to be deciding which few will ultimately build a sustainable career in Kentucky. True, it can only be auspicious to see Gun Runner already perched at the top of their prizemoney table. Though he put together his Horse of the Year campaign as a 4-year-old, he has already had eight winners from 18 starters. But other...

Owner Kirk Robison joins this week's TDN Writers' Room after his undefeated juvenile Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music) romped in last weekend's GI Champagne S.

Forty Niner (Mr. Prospector--File, by Tom Rolfe), a four-time Grade I winner and champion of his generation in 1987 before becoming a sire of considerable importance, passed away Monday, May 18, in Japan due to the infirmities of old age. He had just celebrated his 35th birthday May 11. Owned and bred by Claiborne Farm and trained by Woody Stephens, Forty Niner won the 1987 GI Futurity S. and GI Champagne S. to clinch a divisional championship. A leading sophomore of 1988, Forty Niner missed by a neck to Winning...