Horse Racing News

After a solid spring-summer racing season in New York last season, Dealbata will make her 2013 debut in the $150,000 Endeavour Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs Feb. 2.

Six older horses seek their first graded stakes score in the $150,000 Toboggan Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack Feb. 2, led by 120-pound highweight Mine Over Matter and the recently claimed Johannesburg Smile, who carries 118.

Trainer Doug O'Neill will seek a repeat win Feb. 2 in the $200,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes with Reddam Racing's He's Had Enough, who has just three opponents in the early-season Santa Anita Derby prep.

Fed Biz, after outlasting Tritap by a head in the San Fernando Stakes three weeks earlier, will meet his rival once again in the $200,000 Strub Stakes Feb. 2 at Santa Anita Park.

The seven-furlong Hutcheson is now viewed more as a race for up-and-coming sprinters and milers rather than as stepping stone to the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and Grade 1 Florida Derby.

The last time trainer Dave Cotey developed a top 2-year-old in Canada and gave him up to a big-name U.S. trainer was in 2008 when he captured three stakes, with Mine That Bird, who wound up in California with Richard Mandella.

Todd Pletcher has so many promising Derby contenders, even his maiden winners are getting top billing in stakes. On Feb. 2 at Aqueduct Racetrack, Pletcher sends out the highly regarded Revolutionary in the $200,000 Withers Stakes.

Optimizer went wire-to-wire in the $125,000 Col. E.R. Bradley Handicap at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots Jan. 26 for red-hot Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas, who has won three stakes races in eight days.

Fiftyshadesofhay flew home in the stretch of Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 Santa Ysabel at Santa Anita to take her first stakes victory in impressive fashion under jockey Rafael Bejarano.

Ted and Judy Nichols' homebred Teddy's Promise romped by 5 1/4 lengths in the Kalookan Queen to close out 2012 and opened her five-year-old season in the same fashion with an easy score in Saturday's Grade 2, $250,500 Santa Monica at Santa Anita.