Could he have won? At least finished in the top 4? No one ever will know how Burnham Square would have fared in the Kentucky Derby had he not been checked hard before the far turn, dropping back from a favorable spot on the rail to an impossible spot back on his heels before rallying again – gamely, after all chance had been lost – for sixth.

“He was in a great position. Brian [Hernandez Jr.] was ready to let him ease into the race. He said he only had one horse to go around. We may have been on the lead turning for home. . .” trainer Ian Wilkes recalled.

Michael Gorham has been running horses at Pimlico for more than 30 years. Saturday, he gets his first opportunity to run a horse in the race at Pimlico when he saddles Pay Billy in the $2 million Preakness Stakes.

While Pay Billy figures to be the longest shot on the board in the nine-horse field, he has won four of his last five starts, including a gritty 1 1/2-length victory in the Federico Tesio Stakes at Laurel Park, a Win and You’re In event for the Preakness.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After giving Rohan Crichton the first graded stakes victory of his training career with his convincing tally over Madaket Road in the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard, it will be on to Saratoga and the Grade 1 Woody Stephens for the 3-year-old Florida-bred Macho Music.

Trainer Michael McCarthy got a good look at Journalism on Sunday at Churchill Downs and saw all he needed to see to green-light the Kentucky Derby runner-up for a start in Saturday’s $2 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

“Just wanted to make sure things were as we had left them before I left,” McCarthy, who maintains a string in Southern California, said Monday. “Training with good energy, appetite, all those things you want to see; signs telling you you have a happy horse and we certainly feel like we have that.”

A turnback in distance from 1 1/16 miles to one mile and easier competition mark Chasing Liberty as the horse to beat in the $150,000 Caesars Handicap on Wednesday at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

Shorter distance, class relief, and the presence of jockey Luis Saez figure to make Chasing Liberty favored in the Caesars, a grass race for 3-year-olds.

Friday’s program at Santa Anita will begin with a carryover of $94,783 in the $2 pick six.

The bet covers races four through nine on a program that begins at 1 p.m. Pacific.

Track officials project that the pool of new money will surpass $500,000.

Friday’s carryover was clinched in Sunday’s final race with an upset win by Miss Joe’s Curlin, who paid $24.20. Earlier in the sequence, pays ranged from a mere $2.20 on Miss Miche Lada in the fourth race to $53.20 on Tariff in the fifth race.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Into Amore and Prides Crossing, a pair of 4-year-old fillies who to this point have underachieved in their brief careers, meet for a second straight time in a first-level allowance/optional $50,000 claimer that serves as the feature on Thursday’s eight-race Aqueduct card.

For the second time this spring, officials with the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale, Calif., will appear before the California Horse Racing Board in Sacramento on Thursday seeking racing dates for a late summer meeting.

On April 17, the board officially took no action on Humboldt’s request after a dates proposal was rejected by a vote of 3-2.

The board needed four votes to reach an official decision. The board had six members at the time, but commissioner Damascus Castellanos did not attend the meeting.

Delaware Park is easing into its 2025 schedule with an eight-race card on dirt Wednesday. All but two of the races are sprints. In time, the track will open its turf course, switch to a three- or four-day weekly schedule, and host several graded stakes races, but opening day will be a calmer start to the 75-day meet.

While most eyes in the Mid-Atlantic region will be fixed on Pimlico this week, Delaware will run races on Wednesday and Saturday. Next week, the track will add a Thursday card and turf racing will begin on Wednesday, May 21.