With the exception of the Breeders` Cup simulcast extravaganza in November at Hawthorne, Saturday`s program at Sportsman`s Park figures to be the best betting card of the Chicago thoroughbred season.
Sportsman`s has designated it Illinois Day and is presenting five stakes races-all $50,000-added events-for Illinois-bred runners.
In addition, the track will conduct simulcast betting on two major Kentucky Derby prep races-the Wood Memorial from Aqueduct and the Arkansas Derby-giving horseplayers a total of seven stakes to bet on.
The star of stars on the program is Meadow Star, the 3-year-old filly who will take a perfect nine-race record into the Wood Memorial, her first encounter with male adversaries.
Among them are Cahill Road, full brother of last year`s Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled, and Kyle`s Our Man, coming off a four-length victory in the Gotham at Aqueduct.
Both Meadow Star and Kyle`s Our Man had extraordinarily swift workouts Wednesday in New York, whizzing 5 furlongs on a wet-fast track in identical times of :58 3/5.
”She went a little faster than we planned, but the track was very fast today,” said Meadow Star`s trainer LeRoy Jolley, who won the 1975 Kentucky Derby with Foolish Pleasure and repeated in 1980 with the filly Genuine Risk. ”A lot of other horses worked faster than they usually do.
”For Genuine Risk, workouts had to be easy coming up to a race. Meadow Star has had pretty fast workouts prior to her races, and it seems to get her geared up.”
In the Arkansas Derby, the brand-name horses are Richman, winner of the Louisiana Derby and runner-up in the Jim Beam; California invader Apollo;
Quintana and Corporate Report, who ran 1-2 in Oaklawn`s Rebel Stakes; and Shoot to Kill, coming off a victory in the Preview at Gulfstream.
Post-positions for the Wood, the Arkansas Derby and the five races that make up Sportsman`s Illinois-bred spectacular will be drawn Thursday.
The races, their conditions and top contestants:
– The Chicagoland Handicap, a 6-furlong race for 4-year-olds and up. Affirmed`s Image, an impressive winner in the open company Jack R. Johnston Memorial at Sportsman`s in his only race this year will carry the 125-pound high weight. His most formidable challenger looks like Oaklawn invader Hammocker, who easily won the Sprint Championship Handicap at Arlington last summer.
– The Milwaukee Avenue Handicap, a 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-olds and up. Siberian Storm will be challenging male opponents as the 6-year-old mare uses this race as a challenging prep for the major filly and mare race of the meeting, the May 4 running of the Grade III Sixty Sails Handicap.
– The Land of Lincoln, a 6-furlong race for 3-year-olds. Heading the field will be Arctic Leader, who is a member of Russell Reineman`s outstanding stable and was crowned the champion Illinois-bred 2-year-old male of 1990.
– The Violet Stakes, a 6-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies. It will showcase Rose Marie Di, last year`s Illinois-bred champion 2-year-old filly.
– The Governor`s Lady Handicap, a 6-furlong race for fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up. The class act appears to be Lady Shirl, who won four straight races at Arlington for the track`s leading trainer Noel Hickey last summer.
