With the postponement of the $75,000 Jonathan Kiser Novice Stakes to Monday, three jump races will be featured at Saratoga Race Course this coming week. An optional allowance hurdle is scheduled for Wednesday, and the $125,000 A. P. Smithwick Memorial (Gr. 1) will be featured on Thursday. Post time is 1 p.m. each day.
A downpour that began approximately a half-hour before post time on Thursday led New York Racing Association officials to call off the Kiser, and the race was immediately added to Monday’s program, which will feature 10 races.
Heading the seven-horse field is Gil Johnston’s Syros, who enters the 2 1/16-mile race from a dominant victory in the $75,000 Marcellus Frost Novice Stakes at the Iroquois Steeplechase in Nashville on May 9. Jack Doyle will ride for leading trainer Jack Fisher.
Winner of last Wednesday’s allowance hurdle with Overwhelming, Fisher also will saddle Queen’s Cup MPC ’Chase winner Selection Sunday. Owned by Andre Brewster and Sheila Williams, Selection Sunday will be ridden by Sean McDermott.
Bernie Dalton will be aboard Gary Barber’s African Oil for his wife, trainer Kate Dalton. African Oil, a newcomer to steeplechasing, has two daylight victories in his last two starts.
All Together, the veteran stakes winner owned by Brewster and Williams, will go after his first victory of the year in Wednesday’s optional allowance hurdle. McDermott will ride the Danzig gelding for Fisher.
Making his first U.S. start will be Irv Naylor’s Gimme Five, a veteran handicap hurdler in England who most recently won at Wolverhampton last October. Doyle rides for trainer Cyril Murphy.
Entries for the Smithwick Memorial will be drawn on Sunday.