HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Grade 1 winner Saudi Crown highlights a Thursday card at Oaklawn Park that also drew a Group 1 winner on turf in Argentina and a horse who owns the year’s second-highest Beyer Speed Figure.
The runners will make their appearances during a pick six sequence that has a carryover of $53,697. It runs on races 4-9.
Champion mare She Feels Pretty’s 2026 season has gone into a holding pattern.
Had her winter schedule proceeded as planned, She Feels Pretty would be in steady training by now with one of trainer Cherie DeVaux’s strings. Instead, the 5-year-old mare remains at the Ocala, Fla., farm where she has been stabled since shortly after a second-place finish Nov. 1 in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Despite that defeat, She Feels Pretty won an Eclipse award as champion female turf horse of 2025 for the Lael Stable of Roy and Gretchen Jackson.
Merica’s Back looks like a strong favorite in Thursday’s second-level allowance/optional $45,000 claiming feature at Aqueduct, but there is a horse returning from an extended layoff who looms a potential upsetter in the 6 1/2-furlong race.
Super Swift, unraced since a last-place finish in the Central Park Stakes at Aqueduct on turf last May, returns from a 278-day layoff for trainer George Weaver. Weaver is 7 for 19 at the Aqueduct winter meet and has won with five of his last seven starters.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Racing resumes Thursday with a 10-race program highlighted by a $54,000 allowance dash carded at five furlongs on the Tapeta for Florida-bred 3-year-olds. The race drew a field of just six, topped by the Mark Casse-trained duo of Midnight Martini and Augustinian, along with the stakes-placed Skipping Stars.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Code Review is currently not the most accomplished 3-year-old in the barn of Gulfstream Park’s leading trainer, Saffie Joseph Jr. With only a single start on his résumé, he’s flying under the radar behind stablemates Solitude Dude and Bravaro.
But the well-bred son of Uncle Mo gives the impression he could ultimately end up the best of the group as he progresses through his sophomore season.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Super Corredora, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2025, will have her second start of 2026 in Sunday’s Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles, trainer John Sadler confirmed over the weekend.
Super Corredora, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Oct. 31 at Del Mar, finished last of four in the Las Virgenes Sakes at a mile on Feb. 8 at Santa Anita. She has since worked twice, most recently going five furlongs in 59.60 seconds on Sunday. The time was one of the quickest at the distance on a busy morning.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Thought Process, winner of the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes on turf last Saturday at Santa Anita, is scheduled to have a 2026 season focused on making the 4-year-old filly a Grade 1 winner. The question of how many races will be tried at that level will be determined soon.
Trainer Phil D’Amato said Sunday that the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes, a $300,000 race for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf on May 25 at Santa Anita, is the main goal of the spring.
Trainer Brad Cox will likely have the favorite in the Tampa Bay Derby in Further Ado, but he is also likely to have big chances in several of the other stakes on Saturday’s card.
Cox said Sunday that he will probably run Disco Time in the Grade 3, $125,000 Challenger Stakes going 1 1/16 miles on dirt. Disco Time, who won his first five starts, including three stakes, suffered his first career defeat in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup when he got involved in a speed duel and faded to eighth.
ARCADIA, Calif. – After being considered for a trip to Dubai later this month, El Potente will remain in California for Saturday’s Grade 2 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita.
Military action in Iran, which led to drone strikes in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday and Sunday, was part of the decision, according to trainer Dan Blacker.
“As it turned out, that was a factor,” Blacker said Sunday. “It’s too much of a risk. We left the door open until yesterday.”
