Sacred Wish

Longshot Sacred Wish (Not This Time) just outlasted favored Gina Romantica (Into Mischief) to win the GI Matriarch Stakes and give her sire a sweep of the two graded events at Del Mar Sunday. The 4-year-old filly had finished on the board in six graded events, but the Matriarch was her first win at the graded level and her defeat of Gina Romantica put an end to trainer Chad Brown's string of four straight victories in the race. Dismissed at 12-1, Sacred Wish sat just off pacesetting Ag Bullet (Twirling...

Chad Brown had three chances to record a sixth victory in the last eight runnings of the GIII Pebbles S., and it was the 10-1 longest priced of the trio Implicated (Connect) who parlayed a perfect trip into a first black-type success Saturday at the Big A. Drawn the fence with Manny Franco at the controls for the first time, the $125,000 Fasig-Tipton October yearling purchase was away without incident and raced a touch keen into the first turn as 53-1 Precious Avary (Divining Rod) showed the way at a...

Sailing into the weekend fresh off the Breeders' Cup might sound like a bit of a letdown, but there is some graded racing scheduled that will cure any hangover of the purple and white variety. Across a triad of tracks, including Aqueduct, Woodbine and Churchill Downs, we find both Grade II and Grade III races over the turf and the Tapeta which should come as a welcome dose. First on Saturday, the Big A cards the GIII Pebbles S., which is a one mile battle on the Inner Turf. If...

The GIII Bank of America Valley View S. kicks off the graded action on the final two days of the fall meeting at Keeneland, and a mostly evenly matched group of sophomore fillies will head to the post. Sacred Wish (Not This Time) was something other than a failure on the main track, with placings in the GII Gulfstream Park Oaks--in her first start following a private acquisition by a partnership group headed up by Black Type Thoroughbreds and Swinbank Stable--and a near miss behind Wet Paint (Blame) in the...

"What's in a name?" Spurning Master Shakespeare and embracing anecdotal evidence, consider the tale of how Saratoga's Oklahoma Training Track got its name. Horsemen complained that the distance across Union Avenue to the main course was such a hike that it might as well be in Boomer Sooner land. Another piece from the past concerns the name of the Alabama S. Dating to 1872, the race was given that moniker after the Derby-winning owner William Cottrell of Mobile asked if it could be dubbed after his home state, instead of...

Favored to earn her first taste of Classic glory in the GI Kentucky Oaks in May, Godolphin's Wet Paint (Blame) could only manage a fourth-place finish behind stablemate Pretty Mischievous (Into Mischief). Fast forward through a runner-up effort in Ellis's Monomoy Girl S. last month followed by a trek to upstate New York, the bay finally bagged her own Grade I, taking Saturday's Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga. "She's a super consistent filly who always comes running," said trainer Brad Cox, who won the 2018 renewal of the Oaks...