Derby prep season hits full swing this weekend. Couldn’t make much of the Gotham card in New York, so the focus turns to Florida, a bit of New Orleans lagniappe thrown in.

Fountain of Youth

Some folks have published stats, discouraging ones, regarding trainer Bill Mott’s strike rate with second-time starters in stakes – horses like Chief Wallabee in the Fountain of Youth.

Daily Racing Form Formulator stats only go back five years. The sample is small, so I looked at the actual horses, not just numbers.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A year ago, Sovereignty used his victory in the Fountain of Youth as a stepping-stone to winning the Kentucky Derby and eventually the ultimate prize of being named Horse of the Year. On Saturday, a new group of 3-year-olds with similarly lofty aspirations will enter the starting gate for the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, which goes as the finale on an outstanding 14-race program at Gulfstream Park.

Hopefully, weather will not be an issue, with the early forecast calling for better than a 60 percent chance of rain. First post is 11:30 a.m.

If fates allow, trainer Linda Rice and Acoustic Ave might make a career out of finding short graded stakes fields at Aqueduct. A runner-up versus four rivals in the Grade 3 Elite Power in December, the 6-year-old gelding is sure to be in the mix again in a five-horse running of the Grade 3 Tom Fool Stakes on Saturday.

“It’s just a decent option,” Rice said. “It’s available to us right now, so we’ll give it a try. He’s just been a great horse to have.”

The 3-year-old colt Touch of Fire in his lone start, a Jan. 8 maiden turf route at Fair Grounds, went off at odds of 4-1, a tick over his 7-2 morning line. Don’t expect him to come close to his 3-1 morning-line odds in the $100,000 Black Gold Stakes, the featured race on a four-stakes Saturday card.

Three factors point toward a plummeting price.

Touch of Fire, racing for the mighty Brad Cox stable, won off by seven lengths in his debut.

They’re coming from several locales to run in Saturday’s Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct. Some may be chasing Kentucky Derby points. Some may be just trying to win a historic race with a nice purse.

There will be 73 stakes worth $23.575 million offered at the extended 2026 Saratoga meet, but two prestigious races that had been run at Saratoga the past five summers will be moved back to Belmont Park this fall.

Between the blizzard in New York this week and plentiful options at Gulfstream, trainer Whit Beckman would have been excused if he had decided to scratch his two 3-year-old fillies from the $200,000 Busher Stakes at Aqueduct on Saturday. Instead, the trainer will keep the short field intact, shipping Nycon and Blazing Brat in from Florida for the Kentucky Oaks qualifying race.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Wolfie’s Dynaghost was in career form when trainer Brian Lynch had to stop on him to have a cyst surgically removed from the now 8-year-old gelding’s ribcage. But following a bullet five-furlong work in 59.15 seconds over the Palm Meadows turf course on Sunday, Lynch feels confident bringing Wolfie’s Dynaghost back to the races in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Canadian Turf Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

Literate and Devassa, who have both run through several changes in the course of their careers, intersected to finish first and second in last month’s Likely Exchange Stakes at Turfway Park. They get a rematch in the $125,000 Wintergreen Stakes – for which the purse includes $25,000 for statebreds from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund – Saturday night, for fillies and mares going the same mile on the Tapeta.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Reinforcements to a fragile filly-mare turf division arrive Saturday in the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes at Santa Anita.

Thought Process and Grand Slam Smile, both new to the division, enter the one-mile Buena Vista Stakes as well-accomplished stakes winners with plenty left to prove.

Thought Process has not raced in more than six months and has never faced older. But the 4-year-old filly won graded stakes at 2 and 3, and trainer Phil D’Amato has her primed.