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Tom Law 
Trainer Ray Handal’s girlfriend Holly Ferris pulled up to the barn and unloaded the stable’s most popular member, Elle Louise Handal. The black, white and gray mini pig hopped out of the vehicle and put a smile on the face of Handal’s owners, agents and workers hanging around the Horse Haven stable as she bounced toward the barn.
Jimmy Jerkens beamed as he walked into the winner’s circle with his wife Shirley to meet Chester and Mary Broman and Can You Diggit Monday at Saratoga Race Course.
Travers Week is here and Week 6 of the 2018 Saratoga Race Course meeting starts Wednesday with a 10-race card topped by the $75,000 Michael G. Walsh Novice hurdle and $100,000 John’s Call for older horses going 13 furlongs on the grass.
After Petrov finished sixth in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap July 28, Ron Moquett looked for a softer spot for the 4-year-old. The colt was on a four-race losing streak, including three in graded stakes, and the trainer looked to get Petrov a confidence-building win.
“I’ll get them later,” Rudy Rodriguez said Monday night as he stood alongside the back walking ring at the Fasig-Tipton sale of select yearlings.
Mark Hennig won two races early at Saratoga 2018 and is in the midst of a solid 2018 with 19 wins (compared to 22 in all of 2017) and more than $1.5 million in purse earnings. As usual, his two-barn camp deep in the trees on the main-track side’s road to Greentree, features a mix of horses including several from Don Adam’s Courtlandt Farm strong breeding and purchasing program.
Ron Moquett loves Saratoga. He loves Oaklawn Park, too, rightfully so as Hot Springs is where he started and the place he calls home. He loves just about any place like those two spots, where racing dominates the scene and the conversation, everywhere from the backstretch to the butcher shop.
Ian Wilkes brought a larger than usual number of 2-year-olds to upstate New York last summer for the Saratoga meeting and came away with a pair of victories late in the meet to bring his tally to three for the stand.
The fifth week of the 2018 Saratoga Race Course meeting comes to a close Monday afternoon with a throwback card – just nine races – and the $100,000 Evan Shipman for New York-breds.
Ken McPeek went fishing at the Fasig-Tipton yearling sales. McPeek saw Jimmy Riccio, agent for Jose Ortiz and asked him what he was riding in the Grade 1 Alabama.
