Winter-Spring Meet Training Title Going Down to Wire
Winter-Spring Meet Training Title Going Down to Wire
McCarthy Holds Comfortable Lead in Jockey Standings
Final Weekend of Meet Begins Thursday with Rainbow 6 Carryover
World-Class Turf Course Continues to Draw Large Fields
LAUREL, MD – While Trevor McCarthy holds a comfortable lead in the Laurel Park jockey standings, three trainers are battling for top honors as the winter-spring meet heads into its final weekend on Thursday, May 4.
The 56-day stand, which opened Jan. 1, wraps up Sunday, May 7. Live racing shifts to historic Pimlico Race Course for the Preakness Meet at Pimlico beginning Thursday, May 11.
McCarthy sits atop the jockey standings with 61 wins and $1,832,711 in purse earnings from 298 mounts, winning at 20 percent while finishing in the top three at a 56 percent clip. Maryland’s leading rider in 2014 and 2016, McCarthy ranks third in the country with 90 wins and is just 10 away from his 1,000th career victory.
Horacio Karamanos trails McCarthy with 49 wins from 208 mounts, while Jevian Toledo (39), Feargal Lynch (38) and Steve Hamilton (38) are dueling for third. McCarthy is named in all nine races while Karamanos has eight mounts on Thursday’s card, which begins with a 1:10 p.m. first post.
On Friday, McCarthy is named in six of nine races and Karamanos – 19 wins shy of 2,000 for his career – is named in three.
The training title has come down to a three-way race between Kieron Magee, who has led Maryland in wins the past three years, Claudio Gonzalez and Linda Rice. Magee holds a one-win edge over Gonzalez, 26-25, with Rice sitting at 23.
Magee has started the most horses at the meet with 118 including the 7-year-old ridgling Hunger, who captured Sunday’s finale – his first start in 40 months – to give Magee the training lead. Gonzalez has had 110 starters while Rice’s wins have come from just 45 starters (51 percent), and her horses have finished in the top three 36 times (80 percent).
Though based year-round in New York, Rice has established a 12-horse string at Laurel for the first time due to her success this season. The meet leader in purse earnings with $754,410, she has four horses entered Thursday, while Magee has three and Gonzalez one.
Gonzalez has three horses entered on Friday’s card, with Magee and Rice have one apiece.
There will be a jackpot carryover of $7,485.34 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 wager Thursday, which begins in Race 4. The sequence includes featured Race 8, a $42,000 entry-level optional claiming allowance for 3-year-olds going six furlongs on the main track that drew a field of seven.
Among the horses entered are 5-2 program favorite Two Charley’s, second to stablemate El Areeb in the James F. Lewis III and fourth behind Irish War Cry in the Marylander last year; and Dancing With Maude and Maryland’s Best, who ran 2-3 in the 2016 Maryland Million Nursery.
Laurel continues to draw full fields for racing on its world-class turf course. A total of 61 horses were entered for five races Thursday (12.2 per race) and another 68 for five races on Friday (13.6) over the Bowl Game and Exceller course layouts.
