Stop me if you have heard this before.
The final weekend of racing for the winter/spring meet at Golden Gate Fields will be remembered for big wins by Jerry Hollendorfer and Kevin Krigger.
Stop ? No, I think I will continue if you don’t mind. Thank you very much.
Hollendorfer won three races on Saturday to finish the meet with 93 wins. He was given a stern battle this year by Steve Sherman for the trainers title, but the newly elected hall of famer ended the meet with 19 wins more than Sherman, who finished in second place.
It was one win in particular for Hollendorfer that merit’s a closer eye.
The opening race on the Belmont day card saw his 2-year-old filly, City Route, go wire to wire in the $50,000 Lost in the Fog Stakes, to win by 2 ¼ lengths. Sold Short finished a game second and favored Mighty Monsoon another ¾ of a length back in third.
Hollendorfer watched the race from Hollywood Park, right after saddling another of his two-year-olds for the Cinderella Stakes. His entry there, Killer Graces, then won the Cinderella by ¾ of a length as the odds on favorite.
Not bad, two stakes wins in 15 minutes.
“I thought she (City Route) was a very nice filly or I wouldn’t have run her against the boys,” Hollendorfer said via a conference call on Saturday. “She showed good speed and finished off good too.”
In two races, City Route has never trailed in a race. No telling if she will follow the precedent set by the last two Lost in the Fog winners (Road Ready and Smiling Tiger) but she is worth keeping track of.
The winning jockey was Kevin Krigger, who got the mount when Russell Baze opted to ride the Jeff Bonde trained Mighty Monsoon. Baze had rode both horses in their debut wins.
Krigger went on to win three races both Saturday and Sunday, finishing a fantastic meet that saw him come in a month late, and still finish in second place with 76 wins (behind Baze’s 155 wins.)
“This is the first time I have finished second in the jockey standings and can say that I am happy I finished second,” Krigger said. “Asking for better would be greedy. I made up my mind I was going to sick it out here and I’m happy with what I have been doing. I’m in a place I can be comfortable and I can say I am not looking to go anywhere else.”
*****
Tyler Kaplan, a 17-year-old, who has rIdden at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Aqueduct, Turf Paradise and Yavapi, has moved his tack to Northern California to ride our summer fair circuit.
In just over a year, Kaplan has won 81 races, including a meet at Yavapai (In Arizona) where he won 48 races in just 215 mounts. He also had 50 seconds and 38 third place finishes for a 63 percent in the money ratio.
Speaking of the fair circuit, it kicks off this week in Stockton with the San Joaquin County Fair (June 16-19), then goes to Pleasanton for the Alameda County Fair (June 23-July10), Sacramento for the California State Fair (July 14-24) and then finally to Santa Rosa for the Sonoma County Fair (July 27-Aug.14) before returning back to Golden Gate on August 19th.