Weekend Notes

Tweet It was an interesting weekend of racing and I am happy to report that Bella Cavello's star mare La Chica Rica won her second straight race, this time in a 4 1/2 furlong sprint at Charles Town on Saturday night. She paid $4.60 for the win and held off a challenge down the stretch from post-time favorite Monster Image, pulling away for a 4 length victory under Travis L. Dunkelberger, who rode his fourth winner of the evening. The victory adds another $20K to the lifetime earnings of Chica, who has $298K of lifetime earnings. We'll keep you abreast as to her next race. The stable sends M.E.'s Smile off at Atlantic City on Thursday. Interesting to note that Atlantic City Racecourse runs turf races for two weeks a year, six races a day through May 2nd. Unfortunately, as outlined in the Bloodhorse, this could be the last meet staged there.

The big Derby prep over the weekend yielded yet another weekend victory for Todd Pletcher, where Behindatthebar had a sterling run to catch the frontrunning Samba Rooster. David Flores jockeyed a tremendous final furlong catching three horses in the final stretch run. It appears that Behindathebar will probably point at the Preakness even though he has the graded stakes to qualify for the Derby. I liked his numbers and thought he would place behind Atoned, another Pletcher entry that failed to qualify for the Derby in his last attempt. Tomcito, didn't take to the poly and appears to be looking at the Preakness or better yet, the Belmont, which would make more sense given his running style.

The other big Derby news coming out of the Zito camp, is that War Pass was sidelined with a fractured bone in his ankle, detected on Friday via X-rays. This shakes up the predicted early hot pace and will lead to great speculation as to how the race will unfold without him in it. Unfortunately it also kills my Futures #3 ticket at 14-1. Damn.

Saw "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" yesterday and wondering what was with all the frontal male nudity? Wish First Saturday in May was shown locally, made some pitches to the local indie theatres here in Bflo, but to no avail, guess I'll have to grab the DVD.

Photo credit: The Bloodhorse