HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Oaklawn Park President Lou Cella was picking up a few grocery items near the track before the start of the holiday meet in December when he had an experience that led him to roll out a new subsidized meal program for backstretch workers.

It’s been a hit.  

Oaklawn has been offering hot meals at prices of $2, $3 and $5 to licensed backstretch workers at the track kitchen since the third week in December. Cella said the track had been selling about 40 “units a day” in a number that increased when the ice storm hit in late January.

Forever Young, one of the best dirt horses to come along in years, got his Saudi Cup repeat Saturday, holding back the American star Nysos to win the $20 million Saudi Cup.

Now, it is on to Dubai, where Forever Young will try for the epic double that eluded him last year, when a brutally tough Saudi Cup win over Romantic Warrior left him sapped for the $12 million World Cup, where Forever Young was third behind two horses nowhere near his class.

King’s Plate winner Mansetti, along with his jockey, Pietro Moran, and his trainer, Kevin Attard, were among the 2025 Sovereign Award finalists announced by the Jockey Club of Canada on Friday.

Mansetti, who won the Grade 3 Marine and Woodstock Stakes to go along with his memorable King’s Plate score, is a finalist for champion male 3-year-old and a Horse of the Year contender. Joining him in the male sophomore category are Borealis Trail and Take Charge Tom.

Matt and Bendi Dunn, who operate Dunn Ranch, one of the nation’s most prominent Quarter Horse stables, announced on Thursday that they have temporarily ceased operating a stable at Los Alamitos in California.

The decision comes at a time when Dunn Ranch has come under regulatory scrutiny for a series of positive tests found in some of its runners in major stakes in the fall of 2024. The stable has had two notable fatalities involving runners in leading races in recent months.

The New York Racing Association has scheduled a hearing for March 6 to consider whether the trainer Kevin Bond should be barred from its racetracks based on allegations of anti-semitic social media posts and physical and verbal abuse of other backstretch workers, according to a statement of charges released by NYRA on Friday afternoon.

Afleet Alex, the popular dual classic winner and champion who was linked to pediatric cancer research during his racing career, was euthanized Feb. 6 due to the infirmities of old age. Gainesway Farm, where he stood throughout his stud career, and Cash Is King LLC, which raced the champion, made the announcement Thursday regarding the 24-year-old stallion.

Afleet Alex, by Northern Afleet, was bred in Florida by the late John Silvertand. The colt’s mother became ill after his birth, and Silvertand, who fought cancer, and his young daughter Lauren bottle-fed him.

There were times in the summer and fall of 2010 when California trainer John Shirreffs, who died on Thursday at 80, was racing’s best promoter.

Shirreffs guided the career of Zenyatta, who won an historic running of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita in November 2009 with a come-from-behind move that extended her unbeaten record to 14 races.

Eddie Harty, who competed for Ireland in the three-day event equestrian competition at the 1960 Olympics in Rome and rode Highland Wedding to a win in 1969 in the Grand National at Aintree Racecourse in Britain, died on Wednesday at 89.

Harty’s passing, at a nursing home in Newbridge, Ireland, occurred a day after the funeral of his wife Patricia, according to their son, Eoin Harty, the Kentucky-based trainer. Eoin Harty said that he visited his father on Wednesday morning.