Keeneland

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- The Charles Town Races will present a simulcast of this afternoon's $125,000-added Lexington Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile test for 3-year-olds, as part of a full-card simulcast from Keeneland Park in Lexington, Ky.The Lexington, one of the final preps leading up to racing's Triple Crown, will be run as Keeneland's eighth race with post time for the first of nine races at 1 p.m.

Mike Smith, jockey for Holy Bull, said that the Florida Derby winner came off the track at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., yesterday "bucking and kicking" and is ready to take on California invader Valiant Nature Saturday in the $500,000 Blue Grass Stakes.Keeneland publicist Jim Williams said he expects a six- or seven-horse field. In addition to Holy Bull and Valiant Nature, the prospective lineup includes Louisiana Derby winner, Kandaly; Chimes Band, third in the Jim Beam Stakes; Bonus Money and Mahogany Hall.

Simulcasts of out-of-state races are usually reserved for weekends at Maryland's thoroughbred tracks.But starting today, with the simulcast of the Elkhorn Stakes from Keeneland Race Course, Pimlico management will be bolstering its nine-race weekday cards -- at least for the next couple of weeks -- with more than a half dozen out-of-state stakes.More weekday simulcasting could be the wave of the future.Until now, state law has stipulated that only races worth $50,000, or more, could be simulcast at Pimlico and Laurel race courses.

TodayA pair of turf races are on tap at Old Hilltop this weekend, one loaded with novices, the other packed with seasoned veterans.Mountain Ballad is the lone member of today's $75,000 Woodlawn Stakes with a victory on grass. Along with Rushing Brush and maiden El Serrucho, they are the only entrants in an eight-horse field with turf experience.Mountain Ballad ships in from Keeneland, where he eked out a nose decision over a classy allowance field. Rushing Brush is coming off a fourth-place finish in the Frederico Tesio stakes but his only outing over the infield resulted in a loss by a head at the Fair Grounds.

Et cetera Peterson's car deal legit, Oklahoma says Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson did not violate NCAA regulations by buying a car and returning it several weeks later, the school's compliance department has deter mined. Peterson, the runner-up for the 2004 Heisman Trophy, secured a financing agreement and drove the car for several weeks last winter but then returned it, said Bonita Jackson, Peterson's mother. Boxing Baltimore native Hasim Rahman was named the World Boxing Council's Fighter of The Month for defending his heavyweight crown with last month's draw against James Toney in Atlantic City, N.J. Pro football The San Francisco 49ers added a second first-round pick in next week's NFL draft by trading their second- and third-round picks to the Denver Broncos for the 22nd overall selection.

Racing officials reported yesterday that prices were down nearly 11 percent in the final tally of the prestigious July sale of selected yearlings at Keeneland race course in Lexington, Ky.But they expressed relief that there had been no worse decline in a market that had already plunged 40 percent in the preceding five years.They also acknowledged again that the market was still being saved by heavy spending by investors from the Arab nations and Japan, who once more dominated the two days of auction sales that closed Tuesday night.

Talkin Man was flown from Lexington, Ky., to New York yesterday to run in today's Wood Memorial, where he is the 4-5 favorite.Thunder Gulch, who arrived in Louisville, Ky., from California last Tuesday with trainer D. Wayne Lukas and his stablemates, Timber Country and Tabasco Cat, will ship by van today to Lexington, where he is the 8-5 favorite to win the Blue Grass Stakes.And, amid all this traveling, Suave Prospect galloped yesterday morning at Keeneland and waited for the final dress rehearsals for the Kentucky Derby.

George Mohr says up front that if you weren't there and didn't live through it, then you won't understand: Forty thousand people crammed into Pimlico on a Tuesday for a race between two horses, with millions more listening on radio as one horse raced into legend. When Seabiscuit defeated War Admiral in a match race Nov. 1, 1938, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, the country was emerging from the Depression but heading into world war. Americans placed their hearts and hopes squarely on the nose of a horse with a rags-to-riches story befitting the time.

Ann Golden spotted it right away: the beauty, the verve."She's a 10," Ann told her husband, Richard.And she was Polish. So the young, untested filly became Tenski.Now 3, an elegant, full-bodied chestnut, Tenski has lived up to her name, performing at near perfection on the racetrack while serving as a glowing endorsement of her sire, Polish Numbers.For Richard L. Golden, that's a daily double of the highest order. He bought Tenski when she was a few months old, and he stands Polish Numbers at Northview Stallion Station.

The May 7 Kentucky Derby lost one of its top contenders yesterday that might have challenged speedy favorite Holy Bull for the early lead.Irgun, the front-running winner of the Wood Memorial and Gotham Stakes, was pulled out of the prospective lineup after he missed a scheduled workout yesterday because of a sore right front foot.The horse had popped a gravel, an abscess that occasionally forms at the top of the hard, insensitive portion of the hoof. Trainer Steve Young said he doesn't think that he can get the horse ready in time for the Derby.