Tyler Baze, who has enjoyed a lucrative career riding primarily in Southern California, intends to ride at Churchill through the end of the spring meet (June 29) and will begin a couple of days early when riding Ready Orb Not in the first race Thursday at Keeneland.

Baze, 36, has more than 2,600 wins and $117 million in mount earnings in a career dating to 1999. He will be represented by Joe Santos, the son of retired Hall of Fame jockey Jose Santos.

Brown filly turns heads

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Conditions were perfect at Churchill Downs on Monday morning, both weather- and track-wise, a combination that kept the local clockers extremely busy from the time training hours began at 5:15 a.m. right up to the closing bell. The five-hour session included the specially designated 15-minute window for Derby/Oaks training that begins daily at 7:30 a.m.

Hotshot Anna, North America’s leading older-filly synthetic-surface sprinter of 2018, has recovered from a freak accident this winter at Fair Grounds and is in steady training again for Hugh Robertson.

Hotshot Anna was being bathed outside Robertson’s barn when a wind gust blew something that startled the mare, causing her to rear and topple backward, fracturing her withers. The injury, Robertson said from the start, never appeared to cause Hotshot Anna significant discomfort but she needed several months of rest for the fracture to heal, which it has.

The Arkansas Derby that Omaha Beach won April 13 at Oaklawn was just the third time the race was run on a sloppy track since Rampage captured it in 1986, according to the track’s media guide. Gary Thomas, who trained Rampage, recalled the wet weather conditions from that afternoon after attending this year’s Arkansas Derby in which the rain was constant.

“It was worse than this year’s,” Thomas said. “It was raining sideways. There were about 72,000 people there.”

Balto Star won the Arkansas Derby over a sloppy track in 2001. Smarty Jones won on a muddy track in 2004.

Shotgun Kowboy will be returning to the site of one of his biggest career victories Sunday when he runs in the Grade 3, $300,000 Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star Park.

The last time the millionaire raced in Texas, he won the 2018 edition of the Grade 3 Lone Star Park Handicap.

ELMONT, N.Y. – With the emergence – and now dominance – of brothers Jose and Irad Ortiz as well as Manny Franco in the New York Racing Association jockey colony, some riders were bound to lose business. Jose Lezcano was one of those riders.

That’s why Lezcano chose to forgo riding this winter at Gulfstream Park in South Florida and stayed in New York to ride the Aqueduct winter and spring seasons, hoping to rebuild his business and gain momentum for the summer meets at Belmont Park and Saratoga. It seems to have been a smart move.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Fields for supporting stakes during opening week of the Churchill Downs spring meet are taking shape, with stars such as Bricks and Mortar, McKinzie, Newspaperofrecord, and Bulletin all expected to be in action.

The busy schedule opens Saturday night with the six-furlong William Walker and continues through the Grade 1 Old Forester Turf Classic, the traditional lead-in to the Kentucky Derby. Here’s a quick glance at some key races on the Derby week roster:

Thursday’s 10-race program at Gulfstream Park has a Saturday feel about it with four optional-claiming races on the docket, the last of which features the return of Strike Power, who was last seen locally competing in the 2018 Florida Derby. There will be a carryover of more than $442,000 in the Rainbow 6 when racing resumes Thursday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Bob Baffert can slip in and out of town as unnoticed as anybody else with white hair and five Kentucky Derby wins to his credit. Baffert flew into Louisville late Sunday from California on something of a stealth mission, intent on overseeing a key pre-Derby workout Monday morning at Churchill Downs for Improbable without alerting track officials or drawing an inordinate amount of attention.

They are all 3 years old and male and horses for the 145th Kentucky Derby, but about there, the similarities end. They are chestnut and bay and gray. They were born as close as Kentucky or as far away as Japan, and they come into the Derby off prep races around the globe. They are handled by first-time Derby trainers and by Hall of Fame veterans of the race; they run the gamut from homebreds by six-figure stallions to former claimers. Even their shared age is not a true commonality, as they were foaled anywhere from Feb. 11 to May 23.