OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There are three allowance races scheduled for the turf on Thursday at Aqueduct, and trainer Christophe Clement appears to have major players in all of them.

Thursday’s eight-race card kicks off the final week of racing in Queens before this circuit travels eight miles east to Belmont Park beginning May 4.

Thursday’s card begins with a second-level allowance/optional $45,000 claimer scheduled for 1 1/16 miles where Clement has the uncoupled entry of New Ginya and Home for Christmas.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Keeneland opens the final three-day stand of its spring meeting on Wednesday with an eight-race card highlighted by turf allowances and 2-year-old maiden races.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Three rich allowances are part of a late pick-five sequence that ends the second-to-last program of the Keeneland spring meet Thursday.

The 50-cent pick five spans races 5-9, with the co-features going as races 5, 7, and 8. Bettors can gorge themselves on additional multi-race wagering at the same time, given that two of the allowances are part of the $3-minimum Keeneland Turf Pick 3 comprises races 5-7-9.

First post is 1 p.m. Eastern. A 70 percent rain chance and a high in the mid-60s are in the long-range local forecast.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Jockey Declan Cannon said he received more than 100 text and voicemail messages following his breakthrough ride on Verstappen in winning the Grade 2 Elkhorn Stakes on Saturday at Keeneland.

“It was great to get a Saturday horse like that,” said Cannon, a 35-year-old native of Ireland. “I was really confident going a mile and a half with him. He relaxed lovely for me. It just couldn’t have worked out better.”

The Elkhorn marked the first stakes win for Cannon at Keeneland.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Trainer Kenny McPeek said Rattle N Roll will make his next start in the $225,000 Blame Stakes at Churchill Downs after the colt earned a 99 Beyer Speed Figure in winning the Grade 3 Ben Ali Stakes on Saturday at Keeneland.

Rattle N Roll, owned by the Lucky Seven Stables of the Mackin family, now has won five stakes and more than $1.2 million from 16 overall starts. His Ben Ali score came with the stretch kick he developed early in his career, one that carried him to victory in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland in October 2021.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – One of the more impressive maiden victories of the Keeneland meet was posted last Friday by a 4-year-old filly named Loved, who toyed with the opposition when earning an 86 Beyer Speed Figure in an 11 1/2-length romp going 1 1/16 miles.

Brendan Walsh trains Loved, a Godolphin homebred daughter of Medaglia d’Oro out of Velvety, a pedigree that makes her a half-sister to Maxfield, the most accomplished horse Walsh has trained and another Godolphin homebred.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Recency will be on the side of Personal Best when the gray Tapit filly runs Friday in the closing-day Bewitch Stakes at Keeneland – and she’ll need every edge she can get.

“I didn’t think War Like Goddess would be in there,” said Shug McGaughey, who trains Personal Best for owner-breeder Joe Allen. “No doubt she’s a top filly. But we’ve been running lately and she hasn’t. Maybe that’ll help us.”

CHURCHILL DOWNS
Friday, April 21  
Weather: Cloudy
Temperature: 68  
Track: Fast

LOUISVILLE Ky. – After pretty much dodging the unprecedented heavy rains that inundated South Florida a week earlier to get in Forte’s previous work on schedule, trainer Todd Pletcher found himself watching the weather reports closely again this week in Louisville, hoping to be able to stay on course with the Derby favorite’s first local breeze penciled in for Friday at Churchill Downs.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jimmy Jerkens has been a fixture on the New York Racing Association circuit for half a century. In his youth, he worked for his father, the Hall of Fame trainer, H. Allen Jerkens, before going out on his own in 1997.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Three allowances will be co-featured on the final Sunday of the spring meet at Keeneland, where ontrack fans will have to bundle up in the face of an unseasonable chill.

Highs in the mid-50s are the best the crowd can hope for; the overnight low into Monday is expected to be near freezing. Fortunately, the high quality of racing will go unaffected, with those allowances anchoring a nine-race card that starts at 1 p.m. Eastern.