Hollywood Gold Cup

The 2024-2025 stakes schedule at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California, will feature 79 added-money events over a total of 78 race dates, topped by the GI Santa Anita Handicap and the GI Santa Anita Derby. The Big 'Cap, worth $400,000 in 2024, will offer prize money of $300,000 this year, while the purse of the Santa Anita Derby has been cut to $500,000 from $750,000. On the flipside, the purses on offer for overnight races are above what was offered last spring and autumn, with four allowance and maiden...

This spring's GII Hollywood Gold Cup Stakes winner Mr Fisk (Arrogate--Plein Air {Ire}, by Manduro {Ger}) has officially been retired from racing and will stand the 2025 season at Pleasant Acres Stallions near Morriston, Florida. The Bob Baffert trainee was on a two-race graded win streak after victories in the Gold Cup in late May and the GIII Californian Stakes in April when it was discovered he'd suffered a condylar fracture and subsequently had surgery. The decision was eventually made to retire him rather than bring him back to the...

Surgery to repair a condylar fracture in Mr Fisk (Arrogate)'s right front foreleg was successful, said trainer Bob Baffert on Wednesday morning. Mr Fisk won the GII Hollywood Gold Cup over stablemate Reincarnate (Good Magic) on Monday, but felt `off' in the gallop-out, according to his jockey, Kazushi Kamura. The fracture was later revealed on X-rays. The surgery to insert two screws into the leg was performed by Dr. Ryan Carpenter at the Southern California Equine Foundation Hospital on the backside at Santa Anita. "He had his surgery, and it...

Sunny Brook Stables' Mr Fisk (Arrogate) hooked up with stablemate Reincarnate (Good Magic) entering the final furlong of Monday's GII Hollywood Gold Cup and pulled away from that rival to register his third graded victory from his last four starts. Wathnan Racing's recent private purchase Subsanador (Arg) (Fortify) won the break and held the advantage passing the stands for the first time, but Juan Hernandez was equally positive aboard Reincarnate from the inside barrier and he sent the 4-year-old into the lead passing the winning post with a circuit of...

A total of 429 graded stakes races--down from 440 in 2023--and four fewer top-level events will be contested in 2024, the American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association announced following its two-day grading session Dec. 14 and 15. The Committee reviewed 970 overall with purses of at least $75,000 and also assigned listed status to a further 213 races. Some 10 races were upgraded from their previous status--one new Grade I and nine Grade Iis. Four new Grade III events were also listed. Fourteen new listed...

Caught late and forced to settle for second when racing for Sean McCarthy in last year's GI Hollywood Gold Cup, Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman's Defunded (Dialed In) wrested command of the 2023 iteration soon after the start and led past every pole to give trainer Bob Baffert a ninth victory in the event, breaking a tie with the legendary Charlie Whittingham for the most wins in the history of the race. Favored at 3-5, the chestnut broke well and took his five rivals along at a comfortable...

They could only scrape together a field of four for Saturday's GII Mother Goose S. at Belmont Park, run two weeks after they had a field of four in the GI Acorn S. Saturday's third race at Belmont fared no better. Only four went in the Wild Applause S., and three of them were trained by Chad Brown. And it isn't just a NYRA problem. The number of stakes run across the country that have attracted five horses or fewer is alarming. Since May 7, GI Kentucky Derby Day, there...

There Goes Harvard, the second-longest shot in a field of five, pulled off the upset under invading rider Irad Ortiz, Jr. in the GI Hollywood Gold Cup S. Monday at Santa Anita. Taking six starts to break his maiden, doing so on the Ellis turf last summer, the chestnut was second in the Runhappy Ellis Park Derby on the main track two tries later. Runner-up off a seven-month layoff in a local dirt optional claimer Mar. 19, the homebred dead-heated for the victory in a similar spot Apr. 17 before...

Steve Moger's Stilleto Boy (Shackleford), who has been knocking on the door to top-level success, will attempt to gain that first Grade I victory while facing four rivals in the GI Gold Cup at Santa Anita Monday. The chestnut gelding, 7-5 on the morning line, was second in last year's GI Awesome Again S. and third in the GI Malibu S., GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational, and GI Santa Anita H. before scoring a front-running victory in the Apr. 30 GII Californian S. last time out. Pegram, Watson and Weitman's...

"Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? I know your face... You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big." "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."

"Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? I know your face... You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big." "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." That, unforgettably, is how we meet Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard; and that, you fear, is rather how we meet the faded star of Memorial Day Weekend. Aptly, the first name carved onto the Hollywood Gold Cup has itself become that of an Oscar nominee. Seabiscuit was followed by some of the icons of...

On Memorial Day, we saw a great race between Country Grammer and Royal Ship (Brz), a horse that I purchased in Brazil for Fox Hill Farm and Siena Farm. Two classy horses battling to the wire and neither giving up. But, what Royal Ship was giving up was weight to the winner and that is the issue that I want to address. Why, in a Grade I stakes race, or any graded stakes for that matter, are the horses not running with equal weights or, at least, weight for age...