HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After launching her U.S. career with a pair of starts against stakes company here earlier in the meet, Ballado’s Beach will get a little class relief dropping in against mid-level optional claiming and allowance competition in Friday’s $96,000 co-feature at Gulfstream Park. The 1 3/8-mile turf test, which goes as race 5 on a nine-race card, will share top billing with a similarly conditioned race for older horses going one mile on the main track.

Jockey Gokhan Kocakaya, once a leading rider in Turkey, intends to pursue more mounts in Maryland after notable early success. In his Laurel debut last Friday, Kocakaya won both races in which he rode.

“I found that here, there’s a chance, so I came here,” Kocakaya said. “And I think everything went fine. I think I want to stay here.”

A record number of contestants are expected to vie for an unprecedented amount of prizes at this year’s National Horseplayers Championship, set to begin Friday for a three-day run at the Horseshoe Las Vegas to crown the 2025 Horseplayer of the Year.

According to estimates provided by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which runs the tournament, approximately 625 contestants are expected to compete. Total prizes are expected to exceed $5 million, with $825,000 earmarked for the winner on Sunday. This year’s NHC is the 26th to be held.

A rematch at Laurel between 3-year-old rivals Barbadian Runner and Pay Billy will likely have to wait. While both horses are nominated to the $100,000 Private Terms Stakes on March 22, trainer Henry Walters does not plan on entering Barbadian Runner.

“After his last race, I gave him a little break, a four-week freshener where he’s going to swim and do a little treadmill work,” Walters said. “He’s coming back to the track at the end of this month. I’m not going to run him in the Private Terms.”

Post Time, runner-up in last year’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, will soon start breezing at the Fair Hill Training Center for trainer Brittany Russell. The 5-year-old is not being pointed toward any races yet, but he should begin his campaign this summer.

“We’re just letting him come along and when he’s ready, he’ll tell us,” Russell said. “When we get him back on the work tab, we’ll make a plan from there.”

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Group 1-placed Bendoog will make his first start for Arkansas-based owner Frank Fletcher on Friday in a competitive allowance at Oaklawn Park that also drew $1.2 million earner Disarm and Grade 2 winner Catching Freedom.

The 1 1/16-mile race is for 4-year-olds and up and drew a field of eight that also includes Horace Mann, who has a chance to slip away on the front end, and In a Jam, a stakes winner whose half-sister Taxed won an allowance Sunday at Oaklawn.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A pair of statebred second-level allowance sprints going six furlongs, one for older males, the other for older females, top Aqueduct’s eight-race Friday program.

In race 2, for males, Elysian Meadows and Ten Cent Town, both return off lengthy layoffs in a six-horse field.