Imagine now that D’Angelo has finally ‘figured out’ Howard Wolowitz!

FRANKLIN, Ky. (Friday, Aug. 29, 2025) – His lengthy vacation over, Howard Wolowitz is back at Kentucky Downs in search of another big-money score.

Last year, the Gold Square colt won the G1 Franklin-Simpson for 3-year-olds by one length. He is trying another $2 million race Saturday, the G2 The Mint Kentucky Turf Sprint. He drew Post 2 and will be ridden by Jose Ortiz, who opened the meet Thursday with four winners.

Howard Wolowitz steps back into competition after a 190-day break. He went on to the G1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, where he was ninth, but beaten just three lengths. He won the Holiday Cheer at Turfway Park in mid-December, but ended up a well-beaten 10^th in the G2 Turf Sprint on the Saudi Cup program.

“He ran huge all last year,” trainer Jose D’Angelo said. “After Saudi, we decided to give him some time away to refresh. He came back pretty good and sharp. He’s working really different than last year. I think he’s grown and improved. More importantly, he matured a little bit, too, because he is a horse who is not easy to deal with in training. Last year, he gave us a hard time for Kentucky Downs and Saratoga. Finally, we figured him out, and he’s going forward. I’m very happy with him.”

Howard Wolowitz has been training up a storm on turf and dirt this summer. His last three breezes at Saratoga all earned bullets, marking the fastest of the morning at the distance. On Aug. 22, he covered a half-mile in :46.60, the fastest of 115 on Saratoga’s main track. While he looks to be plenty fit, it has been a long time since the Munnings colt has competed.

“I know you probably don’t want to come from a layoff into this race. You want to have a prep,” D’Angelo said. “I’m very happy with him, and confident with him. The most important thing is he likes it here. He looks better than he did last year.”

D’Angelo said he was aiming for a prep race before Kentucky Downs, but decided against it.

“For sure, we wanted to,” he said, “but I always tell my owners, and it’s part of my philosophy, the horses tell you when they are ready, especially these good horses. You have to run them when they want or when they are really ready. He wasn’t ready before and now he is more than ready for this race.”

D’Angelo said he hopes to get Howard Wolowitz back to the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar, but not in the Turf Sprint. He feels the five furlongs is too short for Howard Wolowitz and is aiming for the Mile on turf.

— by Mike Kane

Ag Bullet “ready to roll’ in pursuit of Ladies Turf Sprint repeat

(Ag Bullet training at Kentucky Downs Friday morning. Grace Clark-Sweet photo)

FRANKLIN, Ky. (Friday, Aug. 29, 2025) — As he led Ag Bullet off the track Wednesday at Kentucky Downs, trainer Richard Baltas asked his stable star, “Happy to be back?” To which the 5-year-old mare nodded, whether answering in the affirmative or just doing what horses do.

Baltas certainly is happy to be back at the site of Ag Bullet’s most lucrative victory. Now she seeks a repeat in the $2 million Never Say Die Ladies Turf Sprint (G2), in which she set a course record last year, speeding 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:14.19.

Ag Bullet goes into the Ladies Turf Sprint off a huge victory over males in the Grade 1 Jaipur run at Saratoga.

“Hopefully we can defend our title, or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “I would say she might be a little stronger this year. She’s had a few months off, she’s only run twice. Her first start was in May (Churchill Downs’ Grade 3 Unbridled Sidney), we had a little trouble in that race. Then we ran in New York, won a Grade 1 with her, which we were hoping to do. She beat the boys.

“Now she comes in here feeling good and fresh and ready to roll.”

The Ladies Turf Sprint presents quite different circumstances from the Jaipur, which was an eighth-mile shorter and run over off turf after the stakes was delayed a day because of heavy rain. Baltas lost Ag Bullet’s regular rider Umberto Rispoli, who with the delay returned to California to honor his commitments there. So Johnny Velazquez was aboard for the Jaipur, but was committed to riding this Saturday at Saratoga. Luis Saez gains the mount on Ag Bullet for the Ladies Turf Sprint.

“Yeah, when she came down the stretch, just opened up on them in the Jaipur, I was so happy,” Baltas said. “It’s so hard to win a Grade 1 with a sprinter.  There are no Grade 1 races for filly turf sprinters. You’ve got to run against the boys. It was a big feather in her cap that day.”

Ag Bullet was unlucky not to have beaten males in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, a five-eighths of a mile race in which she made the lead late but weakened grudgingly to third, a neck shy of victory.

“I wasn’t even sure I wanted to run,” Baltas said. “We went in there. I thought running against the boys, that five-eighths was too short for her.  Then she sat perfect, had a good trip and down the stretch I thought she might even win. She got beat a neck for everything and a nose for second. Yeah, she can run five-eighths too.”

This year’s Breeders’ Cup is expected to be Ag Bullet’s final race before she is sold at auction a few days later. The $220,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase has won seven of her 14 starts, with two seconds and purse earnings of $1,616,328.

“I bought her as a yearling,” Baltas said. “She’s been very, very good to us, and I’m very proud of her. I’m sure she’s going to be a great broodmare.”

The trainer goes back with Ag Bullet from the time he picked her out as a yearling to purchase for owners Calvin Nguyen and Joey Tran.

“I’ve just always liked Twirling Candy as a sire, and I really liked her conformation,” Baltas said. “She’s very athletic, a nice hind leg, correct, a nice long neck. She’s a beautiful horse. I didn’t get her cheap as a yearling. She was a runner from the start. We were going to put her in the 2-year-old in training sale, and she got a hind ankle injury. So we stopped and skipped the sale — and it’s the best thing we ever did.”

— by Jennie Rees

Flatten the Curve’s trainer on Ky Downs: “This is perfect for him”

(Flatten the Curve, right, and the filly Lady Ilza — both based in Germany — training Friday morning at Kentucky Downs. Mike Kane photo)

FRANKLIN, Ky. (Friday, Aug. 29, 2025) – In their second trip to North America from Germany this summer, Flatten the Curve’s connections are very sure that their 6-year-old gelding will compete on turf.

Nearly two months ago, trainer Henk Grewe and jockey Thore Hammer Hansen brought the French-bred owned by Eckhard Sauren to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., for the two-mile G3 Belmont Gold Cup. Heavy rain in upstate New York that week forced the race to be moved to the sloppy sealed main track. In his 39th career start but first on dirt finished fourth, missing third by three-quarters of a length.

That trip to Saratoga earned him an invitation to the $1 million Mountain Dew Bowling Green Gold Cup at 2 1/16 miles Saturday a Kentucky Downs, where all the races in the seven-day meet are run on the grass

Sauren, Grewe and Hammer Hansen are leading figures in German racing. Sauren has the biggest stable and is high in the owner’s standings. Grewe,42, who has 18 of Sauren’s runners in his care, is the leading trainer in the country after finishing second the past two seasons. Hammer Hansen is the leading rider on the German circuit and on Sunday clinched the individual title at the World All-Star Jockeys Competition in Japan.

The Saratoga result was the only blemish on the Flatten the Curve’s fine record since being moved to Grewe’s care last fall. He closed the calendar year with two wins and picked up two more victories, including the G2 Comer Group International 54 Oleander stakes on May 11 at Hoppegarten. Following the Saratoga visit he won a two-mile stakes at the Hamburg track.

Grewe said the son of Zarak is a good traveler, who does not drop weight while shipping.

“He’s very easy to handle,” he said.

Flatten the Curve, the high weight at 126 pounds, visited the Kentucky Downs track Friday morning. Grewe and Hammer Hansen watched him exercise and said he appeared to handle the ground well. Grewe said the track configuration should be a good fit for Flatten the Curve’s off-the-pace running style.

“This is perfect for him,” Grewe said. ”He needs a bit to find his action, but the long stretch is perfect for him.”

Hammer Hansen, 25, is the son and grandson of jockeys who became trainers in Europe. His father is Danish, he was raised in Denmark and Germany and turned to race riding as a teen because of his size: too small for soccer but just right to be a jockey. He rode in England for seven years before relocating to Cologne last year to be a contract rider for Sauren.

“He’s got very high-level horses and seems to be traveling them quite a bit, as well,” Hammer Hansen said. “So, I’m getting internationally top-class horses. That was a little bit difficult with so many more very top-quality jockeys in England. It seemed a good move for me, and it’s paid off.”

Hammer Hansen has ridden Flatten the Curve 12 times and knows the horse well.

“He seems fine. He’s very versatile ground-wise. The track should suit him,” Hammer Hansen said. “The Americans probably won’t know the hilly bits, and he’s run and won on (similar courses) before. That’s definitely a little bit of an advantage. The ground could probably be a touch softer for him, but I think he’ll handle that fine.”

Since they were at Saratoga, Flatten the Curve stayed in the field after it was moved to the main

“He’d never run on dirt and it’s obviously a completely different thing. I think he still ran a massive race,” Hammer Hansen said. “Obviously, the pace is completely different, and he probably wouldn’t have been suited by that. That’s half the reason he hasn’t run on it before. On turf, he seems a completely different animal. If you take the run in Saratoga out, he’s unbeaten for Henk since he changed trainers. We come here in high hopes.”

— by Mike Kane

“We’re really happy this morning,” Sharp says after two wins

(Joe Sharp at Kentucky Downs in 2024. Grace Clark-Sweet photo)

FRANKLIN, Ky. (Friday, Aug. 29, 2025) — Trainer Joe Sharp once again jumped out to a fast start at Kentucky Downs, with Miwa winning a second-level allowance race and Scattitude an entry-level allowance race on the opening-day program Thursday. Those were two of four winners on the program for jockey Jose Ortiz. Sharp and Ortiz fell just short of tacking on another win, with Western Run second in the maiden race that concluded the card.

“It was a great start,” Sharp said Friday morning. “Everybody showed up when they should have. We’re really happy this morning. That was great.”

Last year, Sharp won two races on each of the first two days of Kentucky Downs’ seven-day meet. He cooled off at the end, but his six victories by then held up for a tie for the training title with Steve Asmussen and Brendan Walsh. Sharp had 28 starters, Asmussen 33 and Walsh ran 39 horses (and also had a meet-high eight seconds).

“It’s just what gets in and when they get in down here,” Sharp said. “We do have a little more strength to finish with this year, I think. But I feel good about opening weekend. One thing about down here: There are a lot of entries, so you enter and get in when you can. If that means you start out hot, great. If it means you’re finishing hot, that’s great as well. You just have to get in when you can.”

Sharp has 13 horses entered for Saturday and Sunday’s races. Most will be ridden by Ortiz, who has become Sharp’s go-to rider. That includes Oscar’s Encore in Sunday’s $1 million Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies.

“She won first time out at Saratoga in an auction maiden, but did it the right way,” Sharp said, referring to races restricted to horses that had been sold or bought back for a certain price or below. “She’s going to be trying a mile for the first time. My concern first time out was whether or not she would handle the sprint. So I feel confident the distance will suit her even better. We have some auction maidens and things like that on Sunday, so pretty live group as a whole.”

Sharp has been strong the entire year, starting when he won the Fair Grounds’ winter training title, followed by Churchill Downs’ spring meet title. While he’s not among the top leaders at Saratoga, his 12-10-7 record in 54 starts is excellent —  his wins heading into Friday actually matching Bill Mott and Brad Cox.

“It’s been a really, really good year,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of good support from our owners, and the horses have shown up. We had a bunch of good horses come in, we’ve given some time to some and just had replacements along the way to freshen horses. We have a larger stable, but not the size of some. So the biggest juggling act for me is just making sure I have fresh horses at each meet. You need fresh horses to be able to run hard and be at the top level. That’s the key and balancing act for us.

“Obviously, part of our job is learning to pivot, and then deciding what you’re going to do from there. I feel we’ve been pretty fortunate for the most part when it comes to getting horses in. None of that’s a big deal, right? The big deal is making the horses are in good order. The proper race will come up if you’re just patient. One of the biggest things is not to have a knee-jerk reaction and put them in the wrong spot. That’s everything. And the owners having the patience to let you do the right thing by the horse is key.”

Sharp has had an affinity for Kentucky Downs ever since he won his first race as a trainer there in 2014.

“It’s my favorite place to come; I’ve said it year after year,” he said. “I love it down here. Coming out of Saratoga, which is a very intense meet, it almost feels like you’re on vacation down here. Even though we work our butts off, it’s just a different vibe.”

— by Jennie Rees