ELMONT, N.Y. – The renovation project at Belmont Park is on schedule, New York Racing Association officials said during a tour of the facility this week.

The foundation for the new, smaller building was poured about three weeks ago and the first pieces of steel for the five-story building, which is expected to be 275,000 square feet, could be put in starting in March.

Meanwhile, work on the four racing surfaces, including the new synthetic track, has been moving along, with the process of installing new drainage and irrigation systems the focal point of construction.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – With the dirt experiment quickly over, it will be back to the turf for stakes-placed Ready for Peace when he takes on seven other 3-year-olds in Sunday’s co-featured fourth race. The $97,000 allowance and optional-claiming test shares top billing on the 10-race Super Bowl Sunday program with its filly counterpart, which will also be decided at a mile on turf later on the card.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – While he only beat two horses in a scratch reduced field of three Thursday at Aqueduct, Yo Daddy’s five-length victory in the allowance/optional-claimer likely earned him a shot in the $150,000 Stymie Stakes going one mile here on March 1, trainer Linda Rice said.

Over a sealed, muddy track, Yo Daddy rated just off pacesetting Tabeguache, took over from that one leaving the three-eighths pole and while kept in the five-path by Kendrick Carmouche in the stretch, glided away from runner-up Classic Catch.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The stakes program for 3-year-old fillies on dirt is struggling this winter at Santa Anita, but there is no shortage of 3-year-old fillies on turf.

A week after just three fillies ran one mile on dirt in the Grade 3 Las Virgenes, a deep field of 10 is entered Sunday in the $100,000 Sweet Life on the hillside turf course. The favorite is conspicuous, though less imposing than odds-on Tenma was in the Las Virgenes. 

Breeding sheds open this week in North America – and, taking in the specifics of the current marketplace, the competition to make a stallion successful is as fierce as a prolonged duel leading to a multi-horse photo finish on the racetrack.

Some major stud farms in Kentucky have adjusted the initially announced fees for stallions to better compete. It’s an effort to secure a quality chunk of a dwindling broodmare population to stallions at crucial points of their careers, thereby setting them up for success on the racetrack, which turns the wheel back to attract more mares.