Who will earn Kentucky Derby qualifying points?

Note that the road to the Kentucky Derby (see top of column) now goes through Remington Park in Oklahoma. That’s where the next Derby prep race, the $400,000 Springboard Mile for 2-year-olds, will be featured this Sunday on a program that begins at 3 p.m.

Also note that, besides the Derby prep races in North America, there is a road to the Derby in Japan and in Europe. A top Japanese horse from a series of three prep races there (which included a race held there yesterday) will be invited to participate in the Kentucky Derby.

And there will be a total of seven European road to the Derby races, four on turf and three on synthetic tracks. The top four finishers in each race accumulate points just as they do in North America.

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Two reasons to pay attention to Los Alamitos Sunday

Thoroughbred meet ends and $2 million quarter horse futurity goes at night

Almost back-to-back race cards will be held at Los Alamitos Sunday, each with elements of interest.

• The afternoon card that begins at 2:30 p.m. is the final card of the meet which means mandatory payouts of all pools. The pick-6 pool is currently $34,000.
• The richest baby race in North America (besides the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile) will be held during the quarter horse card that begins at 7 p.m.: the vaunted Two Million Futurity—breathless action for 400 yards by the quickest 2-year-olds on the continent

Escape Clause and Langara will be turned-out--but not to mingle with Arizona's famous wild horses

Escape Clause and Langara did their job. They did Manitoba proud. They proved that Manitoba-breds sold at the annual CTHS yearling sale can have an edge over their Alberta and B.C. counterparts—even though those provinces send quite a few more horses through the sales ring.

So now the 3-year-old filly and 4-year-old gelding will get to horse around in a veterinarian’s paddock for a couple months before going back into training. That’s what their trainer, Don Schnell, told The Insider from Turf Paradise where he has been training 14 horses.

“They deserve it!” he said. Indeed, Each of those horses defeated Alberta and B.C. breds in $50,000 sales stakes at Century Downs before being shipped to Arizona and are a big part of the reason Schnell rated his season “nine out of 10.” Their other accomplishments:

• Bred by Cam Ziprick and Arnason Farms and purchased for just $3,500 at the annual CTHS yearling sale two years ago, Escape Clause won eight of 11 starts this year, almost all of them stakes races. She also finished second in the Manitoba Derby and earned a total of $118,000. She is the best filly at ASD since 1978 when Liz’s Pride won all eight of her 2-year-old races at the Downs and was honoured with a Sovereign Award for being best in Canada.
  
• Bred by Cam Ziprick and Charles Fouillard and purchased at the yearling sale three years ago for $5,000, Langara won five of 10 races including the Phil Kives Stakes and an allowance race at Century Downs in addition to the sales stakes there. His earnings were $61,000.

COOLIDGE WON’T GO TO DUBAI: Coolidge, the Arizona-bred who came second in the Winnipeg Futurity two years ago and won two stakes after that won’t be going to Dubai to compete in a $2 million race in March despite an invitation to do so, trainer Don Schnell said this week. He made the comments following Coolidge’s last-place finish in the Cactus Wren stakes for Arizona-breds at Turf Paradise Saturday. Schnell said a virus, which started among harness horses in Alberta, has been making the rounds at Turf Paradise and six of his 14 horses, including Coolidge, seem to have been affected. The bug isn’t easy to detect, he said: “Horses still train, they still eat, they just don’t have the finishing power in a race.”