After a 90-day ban, Hollywood Hit is finally back to the races - but he's picked a tough spot to do it.
The four-year-old gelding will race tomorrow in the $150,000 Jacques Cartier Stakes at Woodbine racetrack. And although there are only five horses in the early-season stakes, he's in against Field Commission, the champion sprinter in Canada last year, and El Brujo, a speedy four-year-old that won the Kentucky Cup Sprint at Turfway Park last year, as well as the Perryville Stakes at Keeneland.
Hollywood Hit scorched the Woodbine oval last Sept. 30, to win the King Corrie Stakes in a track-record time of 1 minute 7.38 seconds, believed to be the fastest six furlongs run on a synthetic track.
But Hollywood Hit, trained by Terry Jordan and owned by Vancouver real estate developer Peter Redekop, tested positive for a Class III drug, a tranquillizer called azepromazine, during that race.
Under Ontario Racing Commission rules, Hollywood Hit was suspended for 90 days, which scuttled plans to run him in the $2-million Breeders' Cup Sprint last November. Redekop also lost $60,000 in purse money and the track record was nullified.
Recently, after an ORC investigation, Jordan was also suspended.
Hollywood Hit has won five of his six past starts. Jim McAleney, who guided the horse to his past three wins, will be aboard for the Jacques Cartier.