HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The $150,000 Rainbow Miss and $150,000 Rainbow will share a card Sunday at Oaklawn Park after a forecast for extreme weather led the track to make adjustments to its weekend racing schedule. Oaklawn scrapped live racing for Saturday and moved the races that made up that program to Sunday. The races that made up the Sunday card have been canceled with the exception of the Rainbow. The Rainbow has been added to the end of Sunday's program to make for a 12-race card. There is now a special first post of 11:45 a.m. Central.   South Florida invader Strong Like Sara will make her first start against Arkansas-breds in the Rainbow Miss, and she appears to be coming into the race on top of her game, according to trainer John Servis. The Rainbow Miss is a six-furlong stakes for 3-year-old fillies bred in Arkansas. It drew a field of nine that includes the unbeaten Caliente Star and recent allowance winner She’s a Dreamer. Strong Like Sara has Beyer Speed Figures in the 70s in her last two starts, her latest a first-level allowance win on March 6 at Gulfstream Park. The five-furlong race came off the turf and was run on the track’s synthetic Tapeta surface. Strong Like Sara won by 1 1/2 lengths. “She’s really come around a lot the last two months, month and a half,” Servis said. “She’s training better than ever, doing really well, and her last two races show that. She’s matured. She’s gotten bigger and stronger and, mentally, she’s right on target. So we thought she could handle the haul out there and try, see how she does.” :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Servis said he was particularly pleased with Strong Like Sara’s last work at Palm Meadows Training Center, where she breezed a half-mile in a bullet 47.40 seconds March 26. Servis, who more than 20 years ago swept Oaklawn’s series for 3-year-olds with eventual Kentucky Derby winner Smarty Jones, is now based on the East Coast. Strong Like Sara will be his first starter at the current meet at Oaklawn, which is doling out record purses. The daughter of Frosted was an $85,000 yearling purchase at Keeneland’s September 2023 sale and races for Alexandria Stable. “My guy that short-lists for me just loved her at the sale, and so I thought, heck, if she’s that nice, being an Arkansas-bred is just a plus,” Servis said. “She’s a tank. She’s just a real attractive filly. You can see why he was so excited about her at the sale. I mean, she’s gorgeous.” Strong Like Sara’s other career win came on dirt in a maiden special weight at six furlongs at Monmouth Park. She won on a fast track that day but could see a wet track Sunday as there is rain in the forecast. “As good as she’s been on the turf and the Tapeta, I would think she’d enjoy a wet track,” Servis said. “I don’t think that would bother her at all. I think that would help her, actually.” For the Rainbow Miss, Strong Like Sara will break from post 4 under Rafael Bejarano. “She likes to have something to run at,” Servis said. Caliente Star will start from post 7 under Francisco Arrieta. She was a debut winner Dec. 22 at Oaklawn and returned one start later to win a first-level allowance for fillies and mares by 3 1/2 lengths Feb. 14. Both races were for Arkansas-breds. Tammy Hornsby trains Caliente Star, a daughter of Tapiture and the stakes-winning mare Caliente Candy, for Jama Lopez. Rainbow Stakes The connections behind A P Ruly in the Rainbow Stakes go back about seven decades in racing. “He belongs to one of the men who taught me how to ride back in the mid-’60s in New Mexico, Gerald Marr,” said trainer Burl McBride. “I used to ride my motor scooter over to his house to get on horses when I was going to high school.” Marr, who is now 87, flew in from New Mexico for the race and to spend time with McBride, 75. Marr is the father of Joel Marr, the trainer best known for his work with the 19-for-19 racemare Peppers Pride. The Rainbow is a six-furlong stakes for 3-year-olds bred in Arkansas. A field of nine is set to start, with War Mule the potential favorite after earning a strong Beyer Speed Figure of 77 for a third-place finish against older rivals in a first-level allowance at Oaklawn. Gettinby also will get good support, as will A P Ruly. A P Ruly earned a Beyer of 70 last out when winning a March 23 maiden race at Oaklawn. The score came in his fourth start, and he’s been a shared project between Marr – a breeder, owner, and trainer based in New Mexico – and McBride, a former jockey based in Arkansas. “We raised the colt, and Gerald is real happy with him,” McBride said. “After we broke him here, he took him back out there last summer and ran him at Zia before this meet started.” A P Ruly had run second in two of his first three starts before the maiden win last out. In his lone off-the-board finish, on Feb. 23, a foot abscess revealed itself in the days after the race, according to McBride. McBride likes how A P Ruly is coming up to the Rainbow, a race the trainer won in 2019 with Tapit Star. “He’s been going good,” he said. “He’s just a tough horse. He’s very smart, very professional. When he comes into the paddock, he stands there, doesn’t move a muscle. When he goes into the gate, he looks out the front, very professional. He leaves that gate running. He really doesn’t give up.” Isaac Castillo has the mount on A P Ruly from post 7. McBride, who rode for 16 years before he started training in 1980, has an eight-horse stable at Oaklawn. He’s won six races at the meet. Among his winners was Reveille Valley at 49-1. She was part of a nice run McBride had in February, when he won with three straight starters.  “I came into the meet with a bunch of horses with conditions that fit,” McBride said. He’s hoping to add a stakes win to the stable’s accomplishments for his longtime mentor Marr, who also is the breeder of A P Ruly. “He’s got win pictures with me riding his horses back in those days, and now I’ve got win pictures with me training his horses here,” McBride said. “The main thing with this colt Sunday is Gerald. He’s like my second dad.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.