LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With all due respect to the horses they are running in the Kentucky Derby, potentially the most exciting 3-year-olds that trainers Bob Baffert and Cherie DeVaux send out Saturday at Churchill Downs meet a few hours earlier in the Grade 2, $600,000 Pat Day Mile.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tour Player got the ideal setup six weeks ago when he beat Dragoon Guard in the Royal New Kent Stakes at Colonial Downs.

Now, Tour Player returns to his favorite surface and hopes to keep his year-long run of success going when he again meets Dragoon Guard and nine others at a mile in Saturday’s $200,000 Knicks Go Stakes at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Todd Pletcher was pleased with how multiple graded stakes winner Final Score was coming into his 3-year-old debut – until, perhaps, last Saturday afternoon.

“I think he was doing better until he drew post 14,” Pletcher said.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Chad Brown has trained five horses to win the Turf Classic at Churchill Downs. Brian Knippenberg, during all of 2024, trained two winners of any sort.

Brown won his fifth Turf Classic last year when Spirit of St Louis defeated Mercante, easily the best horse Knippenberg ever has gotten his hands on. Brown returns with two different horses for Saturday’s renewal of the Turf Classic: Program Trading, who captured this race in 2024, and Asbury Park, who makes his first start against older horses in his Grade 1 debut.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Kevin Attard looks to be holding a pair of aces in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Whimsical when he runs Lithe Spirit and American Women in the six-furlong sprint for fillies and mares at Woodbine.

Lithe Spirit is making her first start for Attard after winning the six-furlong Queen Stakes over Turfway’s Tapeta for the second year in a row with a career-high 88 Beyer Speed Figure March 14.

ARCADIA, Calif. – First post is later than normal Friday at Santa Anita; the card begins at 3:15 p.m. There is plenty of time for eight races, including a carryover of $157,176 in the pick six, and a Kentucky Oaks simulcast before the sun sets at 7:36 p.m.

Friday at Santa Anita, the main events are a pair of allowance races and a maiden race for 2-year-olds. Track officials are estimating a pick six pool of $1 million on races 3-8. 

No Show Sammy Jo will be firmly in her comfort zone when she returns from a short break in the Grade 3 Sheepshead Bay Stakes on Friday at Aqueduct. A two-time stakes winner for Graham Motion last year, the mare earned her brief respite and should ship to New York with a strong winning chance at 1 3/8 miles on the inner turf course.

“I thought I ran her plenty down in Florida and I wanted to freshen her up a little bit,” Motion said. “So this race kind of fell into that schedule, and I think she’s shown this is the distance that she wants to go.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Winning the Kentucky Derby is extremely difficult. Just getting one to the starting gate on the first Saturday in May is nearly as hard.

Whether the defection happens in January, such as with champion Ted Noffey, or late March as was the case with Paladin, a horse isn’t in the Derby until he’s actually in the starting gate.

On Wednesday morning, just 81 hours before Kentucky Derby 152 was to go to post, trainer Mark Casse revealed that Silent Tactic will have to scratch from the race due to a bruised foot.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If their most recent starts had turned out a little better, Paradise and On Time Girl might have found themselves competing in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks on Friday at Churchill Downs. Instead, the Brad Cox-trained stablemates will turn back to seven furlongs and square off against one another and seven other 3-year-old fillies in the $700,000 Eight Belles Stakes.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A French Oaks winner, a rare sight in North American racing, graces the Kentucky Oaks card on Friday at Churchill Downs.

And not only did Gezora last summer win the Prix de Diane, France’s Oaks, she capped her 3-year-old campaign defeating She Feels Pretty, named champion female turf horse of 2025, in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

Not just a second Breeders’ Cup but a championship season – that’s where the bar’s set when Gezora returns from a winter break in the Grade 3, $500,000 Modesty Stakes.