More than 600 competitors are expected to vie for the $750,000 top prize when the National Horseplayers Championship kicks off Friday in Las Vegas, according to the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which organizes the annual event.

Although the final field will not be set until a “last-chance” tournament wraps up Thursday, the NTRA said that the field will include a minimum of 618 competitors, some of which will play multiple entries. The field already includes 11 former NHC champions, including last year’s winner, David Harrison.

WHO’S HOT

The New York Racing Association cut nearly $2 million in purse money and eliminated six ungraded events from the 2023 Saratoga stakes schedule it released Tuesday.

In total, 71 stakes worth $20.8 million will be offered during the 40-day meet that runs from July 13 through Sept. 4. That compares to 77 stakes worth $22.635 million offered in 2022. The eliminated stakes were all listed races that in 2022 carried purses of $135,000 - the Shine Again, Alydar, Tale of the Cat, Summer Colony, Riskaverse, and Better Talk Now.

International Women’s Day, first celebrated in 1909, is a globally recognized day both celebrating the achievements of women and presenting a call to action for accelerating equity.Presented alphabetically below, nine women holding various roles in the Thoroughbred industry share their thoughts on working as women in racing.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Track stewards met Sunday with trainer Tim Yakteen and asked that eight horses previously trained by Bob Baffert, now trained by Yakteen, be moved from their location near the Baffert stable to the Yakteen stable at the other end of the Santa Anita barn area.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Winning 20-cent tickets in the huge forceout of the Rainbow 6 held Sunday at Gulfstream Park returned $40,357.56 after more than $5.2 million in new bets were placed.

The winning numbers in the sequence (races 6-11) were 6-3-1-3-8-4. Their respective odds were 5-1, 9-2, 5-1, 9-2, 5-2, and 7-1. None of them was a post-time favorite.

The Rainbow 6 pool had been slowly building since the wager was last forced out Jan. 29, a span of 24 racing days. New wagers Sunday totaled $5,270,988, chasing a carryover of $1,369,601 from Saturday.

In the 18 hours that followed Stilleto Boy’s upset win in Saturday’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, trainer Ed Moger’s itinerary included a celebratory meal with friends and family at a famous steakhouse near Santa Anita, reading a flurry of congratulatory text messages, and a predawn drive on Sunday to Golden Gate Fields towing a trailer with three horses.

Sleep was low on the list of priorities.

“I didn’t sleep much,” Moger said on Sunday morning. “I usually sleep like a log.”

Wins by the 3-year-olds Practical Move in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes and Kangaroo Court in an allowance race for California-breds at Santa Anita on Saturday may have been the prologue for even greater accomplishments this spring for trainer Tim Yakteen.

Practical Move ($10.40) had his 3-year-old debut in the $402,000 San Felipe Stakes at 1 1/16 miles, closing from fourth to win by a convincing 2 1/2 lengths over 5-2 favorite Geaux Rocket Ride.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Todd Pletcher was all smiles before and immediately after Forte’s impressive 4 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and he was still all smiles the morning after with the reigning juvenile champion and current Kentucky Derby favorite safely back in his stall at the Palm Beach Downs training center on Sunday.

“He spent the night at Gulfstream Park and came back here this morning excellent, in good shape, looking super,” Pletcher said by phone from his winter headquarters after training hours on Sunday.

OZONE PARK, N.Y.  - Raise Cain, the 7 1/2-length winner of Saturday’s Grade 3 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct, was scheduled on Monday to ship by van back to his home base of Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., where he will train up to his next start, either in the Grade 1, $1 million Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland or the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. Both 1 1/8-mile races will run on April 8.

Ben Colebrook, the trainer of Raise Cain, said Sunday the decision would likely be made based on the degree of difficulty of both races.