Turf Festival

It's been a long Thanksgiving weekend. Lots of Racing mixed in with football, family, Christmas decorations ect.. I am going to focus on Hollywood Park's Turf Festival Weekend and some of the stand out Jockey's there for this week. Topping my list is new comer Rafael Bejarano who capped off his first week at Hollywood Park with five victories including the Grade 1 Matriarch aboard Precious Kitten. Rafael is quickly staking a claim in the already tough Southern California riding colony. My next stand out performer has to be the young and talented leading Rider Tyler Baze. Coming off of a self imposed time out from racing, Tyler's time was well spent refreshing his body and mind leading him to an outstanding come back. Tyler won seven races this week including the Hollywood Turf Express aboard upset winner The Unusual Suspect. Riding against such greats as Garrett Gomez, Rafael Bejarano, Mike Smith, Patrick Valenzuela, Victor Espinoza, Aaron Gryder, Mark Guidry, and so on it is a great feat for such a young rider to be a top of the standings. Hall of fame rider Mike Smith took home a pair of stakes including the big one, the Hollywood Derby with Daytona. He also won the Milesque stakes with horse Sea Chanter. Other stakes winners included Garrett Gomez and Leopard in the Generous stakes, Jon Court and Lang Field in the Citation Handicap, and Kent Desormeaux won the Hollywood Prevue stakes on Massive Drama. It was an exciting weekend of racing at Hollywood Park.