Northern California 2004 Archives

Bay Meadows' Favorite Son Wins Again
By Steve Martinelli

Ninebanks at Bay Meadows © Steve Martinelli 2004

Ninebanks, a six-year-old gelding trained by Northern California kingpin Jerry Hollendorfer and ridden by Chance Rollins, won the $55,000 Foster City Handicap by 1 1/4 lengths Sunday at Bay Meadows. A California-bred by Smokester, Ninebanks stopped the clock in a good 1:42:73 for 1 1/16th miles on the turf.

Ninebanks recorded his 11th victory in 36 career starts and boosted his earnings to $686,168. Adreamisborn was 2nd and Handyman Bill completed the trifecta to be 3rd.

A B Noodle Back to Winning Ways
by Emily Hufford

The popular Northern California mare A B Noodle took the lead and then made a powerful move around the turn to ease away from the field in the Grade 3 Yerba Buena Handicap at Bay Meadows. The white-faced daughter of Alphabet Soup now has seven wins in nineteen starts.

Trained by Charles Jenda and owned by Amity and Bench, A B Noodle has now won four stakes races. She was ridden on Saturday by Joe Castro.

Marwood was second and Hooked on Niners was third. A B Noodle, a five year old, paid $16.20 for the win, her first stakes win since the fall of 2002.

House of Fortune Wins Stakes by 17 Lengths

California-bred House of Fortune, a three-year-old daughter of Free House trained by Ron McAnally, stormed away from a badly overmatched field to win the Golden Gate Oaks at Golden Gate Fields by 17 lengths on Saturday. Only three other horses were entered in the $75,000 stakes race.

Longshot Te Cuira Mucho went to the lead and set a decent pace of :23.1 and :46.4 before being collared by House of Fortune, who drew off under her own willpower throughout. She was ridden by Ron Warren. Church Editor ran second, Secret Corsage third, with Te Curia Mucho fading to fourth and last, 25 1/2 lengths behind the leader.

House of Fortune is out of the Garthorn mare So Fortunate. The Golden Gate Oaks was her third stakes win, following the Cover Gal Stakes and a desperate win over Silent Sighs in the California Cup Juvenile Fillies in November of last year. She is owned by Arnold Zetcher LLC, and was the 1 - 5 favorite in the race. The Oaks was her second start of the year, following a good second place finish to Yearly Report in the San Ysabel Stakes at Santa Anita.