Daily Racing

It's a small price to pay for all he has accomplished, but Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham is already under scrutiny at Santa Anita Park with Excavate, his top prospect for the Triple Crown.The colt finished a sharp-closing second in his 3-year-old debut Thursday at Santa Anita. He had started only once -- to much fanfare -- at 2, when he romped in a maiden race.Excavate was beaten by three-quarters of a length as the 2-5 favorite in the 6 1/2 -furlong allowance race, which was run in a fast minute, 15 1/5 seconds.

The odds of becoming rich playing the lottery are somewhere between getting hit by lightning and stumbling upon an unknown claim to Jack Kent Cooke's estate.Winning money at the racetrack, though not as lucrative, is a far better bet. In fact, with a little luck and the application of some basic principles, you may very well bring home a little extra cash today."It's not simply a roulette wheel on horseback," said Steve Davidowitz, editor of the Internet-based National Racing Report and author of "Betting Thoroughbreds: A Professional's Guide for the Horseplayer," a respected handicapping guide updated and reissued in paperback this year.

King Leatherbury has his own particular brand of genius.He admits that he manages rather than trains his stable of 58 racehorses, leaving the mundane details to assistants.His hands-off style and unconventional methods provoke criticism from some of his colleagues.But no one can argue with his success.Yesterday, after a week of carping between Pimlico management and record keepers at the Daily Racing Form whether Leatherbury was about to send out winner No. 4,999, 5,000 or 5,001, Leatherbury saddled what is expected to go into the official record books as his 5,000th career winner.

The Home Team Sports cable television network will revive a Maryland thoroughbred racing show that was dropped about two years ago.The first show, called "Post Time at Laurel," will start Jan. 2. Kim Goodwin, a member of Laurel's marketing team, will be host.The half-hour show will air at 11:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and at 9 a.m. on the weekends. The entire card of races from the previous day will be shown and will be replayed occasionally at night.Previously, the races were shown in a late-night format during the same day the races were run. But because HTS has commitments to air many night games of the Capitals, Bullets and Orioles, it would have cut into the racing program.

The August-September issue of The Maryland Horse will be its last as a magazine. Starting with the October issue, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred will attempt to fill the void when it becomes a monthly.The Maryland Horse Breeders Association publishes both magazines. Tim Capps, executive vice president of the association, said its board of directors decided to streamline its publishing efforts by producing one monthly magazine focusing on thoroughbreds in the region. (The Maryland Horse will live on, meekly, as a newsletter inserted into Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred.

LAUREL -- Two retired brothers took the Double Triple pool of $232,238.10, involving the third and fifth races at Laurel Race Course yesterday.Stew Stinchcomb, 57, of Randallstown, and his brother, Roger, 63, of Owings Mills, selected the numbers by unexplained inspiration, and the payoffs came because they got lucky in both races.The brothers invested $24 at the Pimlico Race Course intertrack facility while the horses were running here. The betting pools at the two tracks are combined for payoff purposes.

The North American Graded Stakes Committee has released its annual revisions of graded races -- and not only is the controversy of 1990 a distant memory, but also not a single race was downgraded.Only 15 races, including two previously ungraded Maryland races, were upgraded. Last year, 28 races lost Grade I status, leading to an outcry from officials at many tracks. Oaklawn Park, which was especially hard hit, took out a full-page advertisement in the Daily Racing Form and other publications, condemning the actions of the 12-person committee.

Coronado's Quest begins his long-shot quest for racing's 3-year-old championship today in the $150,000 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park.Owned by Stuart S. Janney III of Butler in Baltimore County, Coronado's Quest ranks behind only three 3-year-old colts in Daily Racing Form's weekly Top 40: Real Quiet, No. 5; Victory Gallop, No. 8, and Indian Charlie, No. 24. Coronado's Quest ranks No. 28, one spot ahead of another 3-year-old, Favorite Trick.Janney said he believes the race for an Eclipse Award in the 3-year-old male division is wide-open despite the dominance of the Triple Crown by Real Quiet and Victory Gallop.

They compete against each other daily, yet they dress in the same corner of the locker room. Either could finish the year with the most wins in the country, yet if one couldn't finish first, he would root for the other. Ramon Dominguez and Travis Dunkelberger, 24-year-old jockeys, occupy a rare place among riders in America. They compete side by side in Maryland as they battle nationally in the race for wins by jockeys. Dominguez, a smooth-riding native of Venezuela, ranks No. 2 in wins behind the veteran Russell Baze, who rides in Northern California.

In the first week of her reporting internship for a horse-racing newspaper, Gabby Gaudet nervously approached one of the most celebrated figures in the sport. "Can you tell me how you first got involved in the game?" she asked Kelly Breen, who trained the winner of the 2011 Belmont Stakes. "Terrible question. Get back to me when you think of a better one," he replied.  She flinched but thought fast. "How about if I ride your horse?" she asked. He said yes, they fell to talking, and the story she wrote ran above the fold in The Saratoga Special.