WEDNESDAY EXECUTIVES

Sunday at WOODBINE is SUPER SUNDAY, with 4 stakes races including the 2nd running of the NORTHERN DANCER BREEDERS' CUP and DANCE SMARTLY STAKES, worth $700K and $300K respectively.
Also, SUNDAY is LONGRUN day at the track, featuring fun events to raise money and find homes for our retired racehorses. Looking for a horse to adopt or sponsor? Come out to LONGRUN DAY on Sunday at Woodbine.

DEPUTY MINISTER HONOURED TONIGHT

The 11th DEPUTY MINISTER STAKES will be run tonight on what should be a
 warm, humid evening at Woodbine. 

The stakes, featuring Bold Executive offspring (the race is for Ontario-sired 3yos)
LEGAL MOVE (he’s won 2 stakes this year in 2 starts), FUDGETHEBOTTOMLINE
(3 wins in 5 starts this year) and the Trajectory gelding DANCER’S BAJAN, is race 6.

Two grass races will be contested before it gets dark. Race 3 is an allowance/optional
claiming event featuring several really classy old-timers. FRANK’S SELECTION,
11-years-young, is making his 2007 debut. He won one of these races last summer
in his 3rd start off the layoff. MY LUCKY STRIKE is ‘only’ 8 and he makes his season
 debut in the race too, He won his first start of 2006.

Pedigree buffs will be interested in the debuting MY SWEET LULLABY, a lovely

 Brahms filly in race 4. The Gus Schickedanz homebred is a ½ sister to champion
LANGFUHR, now a top sire.

FROM WOODBINE MEDIA

Northern Dancer Breeders' Cup Turf Notes for Tuesday, July 17, 2007

 PROBABLE FIELD FOR THE NORTHERN DANCER BREEDERS' CUP TURF (8)

Horse/Owner/Trainer/Jockey

French Beret/Sam-Son Farm/Mark Frostad/Todd Kabel

Jambalaya/Kingfield Racing Stable/Catherine Day Phillips/Javier

Castellano

Last Answer/Gus Schickedanz/Mike Keogh/Emile Ramsammy

Marsh Side/Robert Evans/Michael Dickinson/Emma-Jayne Wilson

Pellegrino/Gary Tanaka/Roger Attfield/Jono Jones

Obrigado/Gary Seidler & Peter Vegso/Neil Drysdale/Garrett Gomez

Sky Conqueror/William Sorokolit/Darwin Banach/Edgar Prado

The Carbon Unit/James Long/Roger Attfield/Pat Shanahan

SKY CONQUEROR TO DEFEND NORTHERN DANCER TITLE

Sky Conqueror, to be piloted by champion rider Edgar Prado, looks to

defend his crown in Sunday's Grade 2, $700,000 Northern Dancer

 Breeders'Cup Turf Stakes at Woodbine.

Prado, last year's recipient of the Eclipse Award as the top rider in

the United States, will get a leg up on Bill Sorokolit Sr.'s son of Sky

Classic for the first time.

As of July 16, Prado's $9,401,990 (U.S.) in purse earnings places him

third overall in the standings.

Trained by Darwin Banach, Sky Conqueror, a lifetime winner of six races

from 16 starts, including the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at

Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day (May 5), will look to add to his

already impressive racing resume.

"It's always going to be a great memory for all of us," said Banach, of

the Ontario-bred's stirring score in the Woodford Reserve. "But we try

not to dwell on it. That day, though, it was just completely amazing.

Even when he stumbled, you knew he'd still give everything he had down

the lane. And that's just what he did."

In 10 trips over Woodbine's E.P. Taylor Turf Course, Sky Conqueror has

five wins, two seconds and two thirds.

JAMBALAYA TO BE PROMINENT AGAIN IN NORTHERN DANCER

With seven wins, including three graded stakes scores, and 14 top-three

finishes from 19 starts, millionaire Jambalaya will once again be a

prominent figure in Sunday's Grade 2, $700,000 Northern Dancer

 Breeder's

Cup Turf Stakes at Woodbine.

Last year, the gelded son of Langfuhr finished third in the Northern

Dancer to Sky Conqueror and Last Answer in the 1 1/2 mile turf classic.

Recently, Jambalaya finished third, just a neck back of Eccentric, and

Sky Conqueror, in the Grade 2 King Edward Breeders' Cup Stakes at

Woodbine, an effort that pushed the dark bay's bankroll to seven

figures.

"Every time you buy a yearling, you hope you have a good one," said

trainer Catherine Day Phillips, who also owns the five-year-old. "Did I

think he was worth $2,500? No. Did I think he was worth more than

$2,500? Yes. I liked him. He acted like a good horse." 

So far this year, Jambalaya took the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Breeders'

Cup on February 24 and the Grade 3 Pan American Handicap on March 31,

also at Gulfstream in Florida.

Javier Castellano, aboard Jambalaya for his past three starts, once

again gets the call.

 BILL HARTACK HONORARY DRAWMASTER FOR NORTHERN DANCER

Bill Hartack, the winning jockey in five Kentucky Derbies, including

the 1964 edition aboard Northern Dancer, will be the honorary

 drawmaster for the Northern Dancer Breeders' Cup Turf Post-Position Draw, Thursday at Woodbine.

He will assist in determining the post positions and speak briefly of

his participation in horse racing at the noon media conference at the

track's east-end VIP tent.

Hartack will also be available to the public for an autograph signing

on Sunday from noon to 1:00 p.m. on the second floor of the grandstand.

Woodbine getting $750-million neighbour

(from Globe and Mail)

JEFF GRAY

July 18, 2007

Toronto City Council approved last night what may be the city's biggest single development application since amalgamation, a massive $750-million entertainment complex next to the Woodbine Racetrack that proponents say will be an economic boon to a depressed community.

The developers, Woodbine Entertainment Group and Baltimore-based Cordish Co., say the 330,000-square-foot development featuring shops, restaurants, a skating rink, a hotel, a theatre and other attractions, will create 10,000 jobs.

"It's going to turn Rexdale into Rosedale," said Councillor Rob Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North, the ward that includes the site). The "mixed use" development, which will eventually include condos, would be built in phases over the next few years.

Lawyer Steve Diamond, who represents the developers, said the Cordish has a long history in urban renewal and has won awards for the design of its developments. "They are an established player ... [with] an excellent reputation for high-quality work," Mr. Diamond said, adding that the Woodbine project would be an attractive regional tourism centre, just 1½ kilometres from Pearson International Airport.

In addition to the jobs and economic benefits, he said, the project's amenities - including a hockey rink and canals that would freeze for skating in winter - would be open to the public.

But the project, called Woodbine Live!, is not without controversy. With pressure by a coalition of labour activists, local groups and left-leaning city councillors, the developers have agreed to work to ensure a share of the jobs goes to residents near the site at Highway 27 and Rexdale Boulevard in Etobicoke.

While the development proposal includes a clause about hiring locally, Councillor Howard Moscoe (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence), a left-leaning ally of Mayor David Miller, said he had secured an extra agreement that would go further to ensure that a chunk of the jobs goes to people in the neighbourhood.

He wouldn't disclose the details yesterday, but said the deal is similar to those he had brokered with other developments that helped ensure the jobs were advertised to local residents first.

"It's a win-win-win-win," Mr. Moscoe said of the development.

John Cartwright, president of the Toronto and York Region District Labour Council, said the pressure on Woodbine was necessary to ensure the local community benefited from development.

"They've been basically saying to Woodbine, if you're going to have this huge expansion and tell everybody, 'Oh this is a great economic development thing,' you're creating all these jobs, then they'd better be paying living wages and they'd better be jobs that are offered to local people," Mr. Cartwright said.

He acknowledged that members of UNITE HERE, the hotel workers' union, were also interested in organizing the employees at the developers' hotel, or ensuring they are guaranteed the right to unionize if they choose. (The union already represents the racetrack's food-service workers.)

Mr. Cartwright said the deal to hire locally was a "significant victory" for the community, an ethnically diverse and economically depressed area.

Left-leaning Councillor Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul's) said he was satisfied at the commitments made by the developers to hire locally and pay fair wages, and allow unions to organize.

"There will be union organizing going on. Of course there will be," Mr. Mihevc said. "We don't want McJob.”

OTHER STUFF

GOLDMART FARM of Schomberg, Ontario, paid $120,000 for an Aptitude- Quietly Elegant colt at the 2^nd session of the Fasig-Tipton summer yearling sale yesterday.

Danny Dion of Bear Stables collected a few more yearlings to add to his total set – he bought 8 in 2 days for more than $1.1 million.

A rare offspring of superstar racehorse SPECTACULAR BID, who passed away years ago, won yesterday at Fort Erie. Four-year-old BIDONMEBABY won her maiden for $10,000 claiming for owner Gerald Schell. The filly is a New York-bred (where the Bid stood his final years at stud). Mares by the Bid tend to have good produce records.

In response to a readers query, trainer TINO ATTARD was asked to leave the winner’s circle at Fort Erie on Sunday when he was ready to get his picture taken with his son Kevin after the latter won the Prince of Wales Stakes with Alezzandro. The rules of racing state that licensed trainers cannot appear in win photos with other trainers.

The Ontario Racing Commission and its stewards were the topics of two letters in the Daily racing From on Sunday – one criticizing the disqualification of Sealy Hill in the Bison City Stakes and one critical of the process of appeals (the connections of Sealy Hill have appealed the dq) and how sometimes, the results are reversed later on (one result for fans, one for horsepeople).