HOT SPRINGS, Ark.– Midnight Bisou and Long Range Toddy both remain on pace for upcoming Grade 1 races at Oaklawn Park after emerging from significant workouts in good order, trainer Steve Asmussen said Tuesday.

Midnight Bisou is on deck for the $750,000 Apple Blossom Handicap on April 14 while Long Range Toddy is targeting the $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 13. Each is coming off a Grade 2 win at Oaklawn, with Midnight Bisou winning the Azeri and Long Range Toddy the first division of the Rebel.

The horses worked early Monday, on a fast track at Oaklawn.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The defection of Noble Commander from the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, to be run Saturday, softens the pace scenario and could put comebacker Prime Attraction loose on the lead in the 1 1/4-mile race.

Noble Commander would have run in the Big Cap when it was originally scheduled on March 9, but after racing was suspended and the Big Cap postponed to April 6, trainer Phil D’Amato shipped him to Keeneland. Noble Commander is nominated to the Grade 3, $200,000 Ben Ali at 1 1/8 miles there on April 13.

ARCADIA, Calif. – If the 2019 Breeders’ Cup remains at its designated site of Santa Anita, all roads lead back home for Secret Spice, whose decisive victory in the Grade 1 Beholder Mile on Saturday stamped her the leader of the California distaff division.

And though Secret Spice could make her next start on the road, the goal is to finish the season right where it began.

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ARCADIA, Calif. – The California Horse Racing Board has called a meeting for April 12 to discuss the potential of moving racing days away from Santa Anita this spring.

The scheduled meeting was announced Tuesday, the day California U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote a letter to racing board chairman Chuck Winner calling for the suspension of racing until “the cause or causes” of 23 equine fatalities since late December “can be fully investigated.”

Speaking Tuesday evening in a telephone interview, Winner declined to comment on Feinstein’s letter.

Due to less weather-related cancellations, all-sources handle at Aqueduct’s 2018-19 winter meet was up 14.2 percent, but average daily handle was basically flat compared to the corresponding time period from the previous winter, according to figures released Tuesday by the New York Racing Association.

From Dec. 7, 2018 through Sunday, all-sources handle on Aqueduct’s races was $335,521,091, compared to $293,795,129 from Dec. 8, 2017 through March 31, 2018.

Average daily handle this winter was $5,592,018, up 0.9 percent from the previous winter’s figure of $5,543,304.

Portland Meadows, the 73-year-old racetrack in Oregon that has struggled financially for years, will not re-open this year and the property will be redeveloped, according to racing officials in the state.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ten new names are in the lineup for the fourth and final pool in the 2019 Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which opens Friday at noon Eastern for the customary three-day run.

The morning line for Pool 4 as set forth by Churchill Downs oddsmaker Mike Battaglia shows 8-1 co-favorites in Game Winner and Maximum Security – but with three major Derby preps to be run Saturday, there figures to be plenty of movement in odds by the time the pool closes Sunday.

Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., has adjusted the date of the Super Derby and renamed a stakes race in honor of horseman Frankie Brothers in changes to the track’s 14-race stakes schedule announced Monday. The meet opens May 4 for an 84-date season that runs through Sept. 25.  

The Grade 3, $300,000 Super Derby will be run on Sept. 7. The date is approximately a week later than last year, when it was held on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. This year, the Super Derby will move back to a Saturday. The later date is intended to better serve patrons at Louisiana Downs.

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – When Maybry’s Boy won the Spectacular Bid Stakes at Gulfstream Park in the winter of 2002, his neophyte owner Randy Hill thought, “This game’s not that hard.”

Over the last 17 years, Hill, like most owners, has learned just how hard it can be to own horses. For all the difficult times, though, there is the anticipation for days like this coming Saturday that make it all worthwhile.

Saturday, Hill will be part-owner of three horses running in major Kentucky Derby preps and another in a high-class sprint stakes.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The best race of the entire 2018-19 Gulfstream Park Championship meeting was arguably the battle for leading jockey honors which went down to the final yards of the final race of the 89-day session before Irad Ortiz Jr. nosed out two-time defending champion Luis Saez for the title.