Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. will attempt to keep his momentum from Gulfstream Park’s championship meet rolling when the Royal Palm meet opens Thursday. Joseph will send out leading contender Bless America in the featured seventh race.

The first-level allowance is for 3-year-olds and up at 5 1/2 furlongs on Tapeta. It carries an optional claiming price of $25,000.

Management and horsemen alike will be hoping for radio silence Thursday at Aqueduct as racing resumes following one of the strangest cancellations one could conceive.

Sunday’s card, the final one of the winter meet, was canceled by management due to “unacceptable noise levels” owing to blaring music from an auto show held just outside the fence that separates a parking lot for the Resorts World Casino and the top of Aqueduct’s stretch. The cancellation brought new meaning to March Madness.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on Saturday has an expected field of five, led by the division champion of 2024, plus the early favorite for the Kentucky Derby.

The small field will affect the number of qualifying points available for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 3.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Tirupati, the former claimer who won her first stakes in the Grade 3 Wilshire Stakes at a mile on turf at Santa Anita last Saturday, is under consideration for the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes on May 26.

Trainer Jonathan Thomas said on Sunday that he has as many as three candidates for the $300,000 Gamely Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf, including the graded stakes winners Mrs. Astor and Rashmi. All three are owned by George Strawbridge Jr.’s Augustin Stable.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Shea Brennan, a stakes winner against California-breds at Los Alamitos in December, will not start in Saturday’s $125,000 Echo Eddie Stakes for statebred 3-year-olds at Santa Anita.

“I had to back off on him,” trainer Phil D’Amato said on Sunday.

Shea Brennan, who races for owner and breeder Nick Alexander, finished first in the California Cup Derby at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita in January, but was disqualified and placed second for causing interference in the stretch.

ARCADIA, Calif. – For the second consecutive week, Santa Anita has a Friday program with a carryover in the $2 pick six.

The bet proved too difficult on Sunday, with a carryover of $100,818 for Friday confirmed after Divine Rascal ($33.80) won the ninth race on a 10-race program.

Friday’s pick six covers the fifth through 10th races on a 10-race program that begins at 1 p.m. Pacific. The pool of new money may surpass $700,000.

The pick six races on Friday includes three on dirt and three on turf, with fields of 11, 8, 6, 8, 12, and 9 before scratches.

Jockey Samuel Marin won two races on Statesman during the winter at Tampa Bay Downs. Typically, when a horse like this – especially a 3-year-old in spring – graduates to a graded stakes event in another jurisdiction, a jockey change accompanies that move.

Not in this case.

Superwolf won the Best of Ohio Juvenile in October over his Robert Gorham-trained stablemate, Boots Malone, who was pulled up before finishing. But Boots Malone turned the tables next time out with an impressive allowance win, and the geldings get a rubber match in Thursday’s $75,000 Howard B. Noonan Stakes for Ohio-bred 3-year-olds at Mahoning Valley.

The six-furlong Noonan is the second stakes of this calendar year in Ohio, following the Southern Park Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on March 20, and the final stakes of this season at Mahoning Valley. The meet closes April 12.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna breezed five furlongs in 1:01 on Monday morning at Oaklawn Park as she continues preparations for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Apple Blossom Handicap.

The 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares is April 12 at Oaklawn.

Thorpedo Anna came out in the first set, on a crisp morning in the mid-50s. She backtracked to the sixteenth pole and worked by herself. The track was rated fast.