ARCADIA, Calif. – It happens every year in the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis at Santa Anita – a Bob Baffert-trained favorite wins the early season route for 3-year-olds. Saturday, it is Desert Gate’s turn.

Baffert favorites have won the Lewis for seven straight years and Baffert has won the Lewis 13 times. Why should 2026 be any different? Two reasons – Intrepido and Secured Freedom. Though 6-5 program favorite Desert Gate is working super for his comeback and controls his destiny as the likely pacesetter, his rivals are legit.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Nitrogen breathes different air as a champion, and trainer Mark Casse is hoping her class will help her overcome a disrupted training schedule when she launches her 4-year-old season Saturday in the Grade 3, $250,000 Bayakoa at Oaklawn Park.

The 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares is the first stepping-stone toward the Grade 1, $1.25 million Apple Blossom Handicap here April 11.

Touchuponastar can tie a record Saturday when he attempts to win the $150,000 Louisiana Premier Night Championship for the fourth consecutive year at Delta Downs.

The 1 1/16-mile race is the centerpiece of a card featuring six stakes for Louisiana-breds. Purses for the entire 11-race program total nearly $1 million, making Louisiana Premier Night the richest card of the meet at Delta. First post is 4:45 p.m. Central.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Tom Durant has been in racing since the 1980s, but he will be charting some new territory Friday when his homebred D’code chases after Kentucky Derby points in the Grade 3, $1 million Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

“I’ve had some good horses, had some horses that have won a lot of money, but I haven’t ever been in the Derby,” he said. “He will be my first, if he makes it.”

Durant, 76, is the current leading owner at Oaklawn.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Mystik Dan, who won the Southwest Stakes in 2024 before going on to capture the Kentucky Derby, enters stud this year and will have the support of mares owned by his trainer, Kenny McPeek, and some of his clients. They include Take Charge Milady, who won last year’s Martha Washington at Oaklawn.

“She’s going to be bred to Mystik Dan,” McPeek said. “We’re just simply going to get her covered early and put her back in training for the spring and summer.

“We’re going to be taking about 20-plus mares to Mystik Dan this spring.”

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Older filly and mare turf specialists will take center stage Friday at Gulfstream Park, where a pair of top-level allowance and optional claiming events for the division highlight the afternoon’s 10-race program.

Few will recall a horse named Salvaje, a mare who never won a stakes race and whose last start came in November 2023. But bettors who elect to back favored Hey Bertie in the featured seventh race Friday at Fair Grounds should take heed of that name.