Day 29
ESTIMATED ATTENDANCE 20,000
ON-TRACK HANDLE $1,154,864
OFF-TRACK HANDLE $3,370,630
TOTAL HANDLE $4,525,494
TODAY’S CLASSIX CARRYOVER $3,983
TODAY’S WAGERING MENU Win-place-show, exacta, trifecta and superfecta wagering offered on all races. Daily double (races 1-2, 8-9). CLASSIX (races 3-8). Pick-3 (rolling begins with race 2). Pick-4 (races 2-5 races 6-9).
TODAY’S SIMULCASTING SCHEDULE 11:30 a.m. Laurel Park, 11:25 a.m. Tampa Bay, 12:10 p.m. Turfway Park, 12:20 p.m. Aqueduct, 1:25 p.m. Fair Grounds, 1:50 p.m. Hawthorne, 2:30 p.m. Santa Anita, 2:45 p.m. Golden Gate
SATURDAY’S STARS
Jockeys Emmanuel Esquivel, Ricardo Santana, Jr., and Julio Felix each won two races, with Felix winning the second on Knotty Wild Girl ($20.20) and the eighth race, the Grade III Honeybee Stakes, on Sarah Sis ($7.80). Esquivel won the opener with Wingate Hall ($42.40) and the seventh with Raagheb ($12.40) for trainer Dan Peitz. Esquivel kept the mount on Raagheb after the colt was disqualified from a troubled second-place finish on Feb. 21 and placed ninth. Esquivel came off a three-day suspension for the infraction on Friday.Trainer Ingrid Mason won twice, with Knotty Wild Girl ($20.20) in the second and Sarah Sis in the featured eighth.
FINAL FURLONG
Horses trained by women won three of Saturday’s nine races. Mason won the second and eighth races with Wingate Hall and Sarah Sis and Lynn Chleborad won the finale with Big Money Speaks. Mason and Chleborad have six winners each on the meet. Mason has started 50, with 11 second-place finishes and 4 third-place showings. Chleborad has 11 on-the-board finishes from her 45 starts. … Saturday’s first three races, all at 6 furlongs, were won in front-running fashion. That streak ended when Maximum Horsepower came from 8 lengths back to win the fourth race, a $12,500 maiden claimer at 1 mile, 1/16th, the first route race of the day. There were no other wire-to-wire winners on the card. … Trainer Kenny McPeek told the Oaklawn media department on Friday he hopes to work The Truth Or Else Sunday in preparation for the $750,000 Rebel Stakes (G2) March 14. McPeek said Calvin Borel will retain the mount on the Southwest runner-up. … Street Strategy, a candidate for the Grade II $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap on April 11, drew post 8 for today’s second-level allowance/optional claimer at 1 1/16 miles. Street Strategy was scheduled to run in a similar race last Saturday, but Oaklawn canceled racing because of frigid temperatures.