TIME'S RUNNING OUT to enjoy the Thursday all-you-can-eat certified Angus prime rib buffet for $18.95.  Just four Thursdays left, including tonight.  Tonight's tasty entree additions: roasted chicken in a creamy herb sauce.  And roasted chili pork.  Phone 885-3330 to reserve.

 

WORLD'S TOP SPRINTER RETURNS TOMORROW:  Black Caviar, the Australian race machine who wins without trying, will go for 11 straight tomorrow night, Australian Derby Day, in the $1 million TJ Smith Stakes at Randwick.  Will a certain player in the Race Book see the race wrongly--as he did the last time Black Caviar raced--and jump around wildly, saying the horse is beaten?  Whoops!

 

TONIGHT'S PICK 'EM CONTEST POOL INCREASES:  Your pick-3 prediction worth $100!  (1) Predict the winner in race 7 at Charles Town tonight and (2) the pick-3 in races 7 to 9 and put your picks in the subject line of your email and send to theinsider@ASDowns.com by 8 p.m. tonight.  Prizes:  Correct winner--$20, correct pick three--$80. AND winners receive a $20 bonus if present at the announcement 8 p.m. Friday in the Race Book. (Draw will determine winner if there are multiple correct answers.) Usual rules apply. Last week's winner:  Congrats to Earl Stopera.  His entry was drawn from among nine correct entrants and, since he was present, he won the full $60

Sidney Crosby Predict return

cash prize!  There were 36 entrants.

  

QUICKIE NEW CONTEST:  On what date will Sidney Crosby return from his concussion to play in a hockey game?  Get $25 cash for your correct prediction, doubled to $50 if you're at the track the day he plays.  Send prediction by tomorrow (Friday) midnight to theinsider@ASDowns.com.  One entry only and per email address.  Multiple correct entries will result in a draw the day he plays.  If there is no correct answer, a draw for $20 in wagering vouchers will be made on the Friday night after his first appearance.  (Must be present to win.)

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ASD went to the dogs--and crowds loved it! Retriever demonstrations put on by the Manitoba Gun Dog Association were a huge crowd-pleaser at the Downs' first-ever Sport & Leisure Show last Saturday and Sunday.  What's the best measure of a show's success?  That exhibitors want to return.  And, in surveys filled out at the end of the show, most said they would.  (See more pictures at bottom of column.)

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 Saved from the butcher
Standardbred shows gratitude by winning 25 in a row

Standardbred St. Elmo Hero can thank his breeder for giving him the chance to race in stakes instead of being turned into steaks.  And what better way to show his gratitude than by winning all 25 of his starts, including his last race at Woodbine last Saturday, to earn more than $200,000?

St. Elmo Hero Rescued by breeder

What happened was this: St Elmo Hero's Illinois breeder, Carl Becker, got wind that the new owner of his 2-year-old colt and his mother, Crystal Cricket, was going to send them to the slaughter house because the mother is an unproven broodmare.  So he launched court action to recover the pair, which he was able to do for an outlay of $700.

Becker gelded the colt and entered him last July at the age of four in a bottom level $7,000 claiming race at Balmoral Park in Chicago.  His horse was claimed out of the race and has simply become a pacing machine since, winning everything in sight. Kind of a "brink to the bank" story.  Watch for him again soon.  Harness horses generally race every week.

The legendary pacer Bret Hanover appears to have the recorded the most wins before being beaten: 35.  He lost his first race in 1965. 

Uncle Mo  Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner to race in Wood Memorial Saturday

Aqueduct has the $1 million Wood Memorial. Excuse me, it's now called the Resorts World New York Casino Wood Memorial.  All eyes will be on Uncle Mo, winner of last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile and favoured to win the Kentucky Derby.  Trainer Todd Pletcher termed a recent workout "perfect," a word he doesn't frequently use.

Santa Anita has the $1 million Santa Anita Derby.  This is your race in the $1,000 Road to the Kentucky Derby contest.  Be sure to fill out an entry.  Predicting the correct triactor could be worth $250 to you and picking the winner could put you in the running for $500 when the eight-race contest ends after two more picks.

And Hawthorne features the $250,000 Illinois Derby.

EARLY KENTUCKY DERBY PREDICTION:  The main danger to Uncle Mo in the Kentucky Derby now appears to be Dialed In who won the Florida Derby last Sunday.  He'll be dangerous because he closed into a speed-biased track in his last two races, including his last-to-first win in the Florida Derby. If the Kentucky Derby were held today, I could see the Baffert-trained speedball, The Factor, on or close to the lead, Uncle Mo making a move on the leaders and Dialed In trying to close on Mo.

But there's lots of racing yet to come.  Let's see what happens this weekend.

April Fool colt celebrates 2nd birthday with muffins Jon's Golden Run turned two on April Fool's Day which had his owner, Edwina Larsen, baking real horsey muffins which were fed to him Saturday by groom Clairmont Paris.  The chestnut colt, named for gold medal Olympian skeleton racer Jon Montgomery, has been training well, says trainer Emile Corbel.  You'll get your first opportunity to see and pat this extraordinarily affectionate colt at the annual Open House on May 1, a week before live racing begins.

Quick bits . . .
Gold medalist goalie loves trainer Gray's displayer
To local race fans, the name "Clayton Gray" is as familiar as Kellogg's Corn Flakes.  And no

Jersey joy Goalie Stacey Corfield (right) with parents Jim and Tannis show off jersey in Gray's two-sided displayer.

wonder.  It seems he's been around forever, winning seven training titles in the 1970's, and being the first trainer to win the Manitoba Derby with a Manitoba-bred (Merry's Jay in 1976).  But Saturday he showed another side:  He had gold medalist goalie Stacey Corfield, a nursing student at the University of Manitoba, and her parents singing his praises.  That's because, in the off-season, he's been building two-sided displayers for sports jerseys--at a price that is one-third to one-half other displayers in the marketplace. "Just what we were looking for," said Stacey's mom, Tannis, at the Sports & Leisure Show.  Stacey won the gold medal in the World University Games hockey finale in China in 2009.

BIOFUEL NAMED HORSE OF THE YEAR:  Three-year-old filly Biofuel was named Canada's Horse of the Year at the 36th annual Sovereign Awards banquet Friday at Woodbine.  She was four-for-four in the races she entered at the Toronto track last year, all stakes events.  In accepting the award, U.S. owner-breeder Brereton Jones was especially laudatory toward Woodbine, saying "no racing operation anywhere in the world is better managed."  Manitoba Jockey Club president Harvey Warner was there and he presented the award for Champion Turf Male--Grand Adventure--to Rick Balaz.  See other Sovereign Awards winners here.

Will Tiger become Tiger again at the Masters?