LITTLE ROCK — Comedero keeps on winning
It’s $342,450 and counting for the sensational Comedero, who took another step toward becoming the richest Arkansas-bred in history in the $400,000 Red Legend Stakes on Saturday night at Charles Town Race Course in West Virginia.
The victory in the country’s richest race for 3-year-old sprinters was Comedero’s eighth in nine lifetime starts and pushed his earnings to $504,300, $342,450 short of supplanting the mighty Nodouble as the leading Arkansas-bred money winner.
Nodouble, the country’s two-time champion handicap horse, earned $846,749 from 1967-1970.
Save a minor laceration on a hind ankle that required stitches, trainer Michael Stidham said Comedero emerged from his geared-down 2 1 /4-length victory Saturday in “great shape.”
Comedero opened a lead of approximately 10 lengths on the backstretch before almost jogging across the finish line. He earned a Beyer speed figure of 98 in the seven-eighths-mile race.
Stidham said Comedero will continue to run against 3-year-olds, with his next two starts probably coming at historic Saratoga inupstate New York.
Comedero is a candidate for the $150,000 Grade II Amsterdam Stakes on Aug.
2 and the $250,000 Grade I King’s Bishop Stakes on Aug. 28.
The Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Nov. 6 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., Stidham said, is becoming a more realistic target, too.
“He’s dominating the 3-year-old races,” Stidham said. “You just have to hope that he can be healthy and somewhat fresh for that kind of a race. If we’re still running the kind of numbers we’re running now and we’ve got a healthy horse, we’re going to have to look at it.”
Comedero has won five consecutive stakes races this year, including the $60,000 Mountain Valley and $50,000 Rainbow at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, by a combined 29 1 /2 lengths.
He has never faced older horses.
Comedero, a gelded son of Posse, was bred by McDowell Farm of Sparkman.
In partnership, McDowell also bred Strong Suit, an unbeaten Arkansas-bred2-year-old colt who won last week’s Coventry Stakes at famed Royal Ascot in England.
Strong Suit is by Rahy.
Mandurah update
Trainer Grant Forster said Mandurah, who set a world record for a mile grass race (1:31.23) June 6 at Monmouth Park in New Jersey, continues to recover from a serious skin infection in his right hock that developed a week after his turf debut.
Owned by Arkansas native Greene “Kip” Colvin, Mandurah won three races this year at Oaklawn, including the popular 1 3 /4-mile Trail’s End marathon that traditionally closes the meeting.
Colvin, a Ouachita Baptist graduate, is a Memphis-area ear, nose and throat physician.
Mandurah has been treated for cellulitis at the New Jersey Equine Clinic since June 14, Forster said, but could return to his barn this weekend and resume training early next month at Monmouth.
Forster said ultrasounds and X-rays of the hock, a joint that bends backward in the hind leg and corresponds to the human ankle, are encouraging.
The 6-year-old A.P. Indy gelding has been receiving antibiotics and hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy, Forster said.
“The majority of the swelling is out of the hock,” Forster said. “At this point, it’s starting to look like we’re out of the woods.”
Forster said he believes cellulitis developed after Mandurah injured himself in his stall.
High on ’candy
One of the biggest buzz horses of the recently completed Oaklawn meeting, Mykindacandy, ran the fastest 5 1 /2 furlongs of the Churchill Downs spring/ summer meeting in a frontrunning 9 1 /4-length maiden victory Friday night under Calvin Borel.
Mykindacandy, a 3-yearold Candy Ride colt owned by Phyllis Newcomb of Benton, covered the distance in 1:02.74 to narrowly miss the track record.
Mykindacandy, who paid $6.60 as the 2-1 favorite, made his first three career starts at Oaklawn for trainer Stanley Roberts of Forrest City and was beaten twice as an odds-on wagering choice.
Roberts said Newcomb turned down at least one six-figure offer for the colt during the meeting.
Mykindacandy was making his first start Friday for three-time Oaklawn training champion Bobby Barnett, a longtime friend of Newcomb’s husband, Don, a veterinarian and retired trainer.
“When they sent him to me, they said they really had high hopes for him,” Barnett said.
Barnett, who is based at Churchill, said he plans to run Mykindacandy next in an allowance spot.
The colt earned an 89 Beyer speed figure for Friday’s victory.
Sports, Pages 21 on 06/23/2010