WHO’S HOT

The one-two finishers from both the Louisiana Derby and Sunland Park Derby last weekend are the four newcomers to this week’s Derby Watch top 20, which is increasingly driven by the points list as Derby Day draws closer because you can’t win it if you’re not in it. By My Standards and Spinoff, the top two in the Louisiana Derby, are both 20-1 on the Kentucky Derby line set by Mike Watchmaker, Daily Racing Form’s national handicapper. Watchmaker has both Cutting Humor and Anothertwistafate, the top two in the Sunland Park Derby, at 30-1.

Carlo Vaccarezza announced this week from South Florida that he is giving up his training career and will soon disperse his stable of about 40 horses to other trainers.

“I’ve just got too many other things going,” said Vaccarezza, 66. “It’s taking a toll on me.”

Through last weekend, Vaccarezza had won 101 races from 729 starters since he began training on his own in November 2013. His stable has earned $3,053,014. In the preceding years, he was best known as the owner and breeder of Little Mike, a multiple Grade 1 winner who earned more than $3.5 million.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark.--The champion Shamrock Rose is heading back to Kentucky.

Trainer Mark Casse said Tuesday that Shamrock Rose is being pointed for the Grade 1, $300,000 Madison on April 6 at Keeneland. She won at the Lexington, Ky., track a year ago, taking the Grade 2 Raven Run one start before capturing the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Churchill Downs.

Irad Ortiz Jr., who was aboard for the Breeders’ Cup, has the mount in the Madison, said Casse.

Horses are not being allowed to ship in or out of Golden Gate Fields in Northern California due to the death of a horse this weekend that tested positive for the highly contagious disease equine herpesvirus, according to state officials.

Trainer Todd Pletcher’s 3-year-olds are starting to come to hand, punctuated by Cutting Humor’s track-record win Sunday in the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Park Derby. 

Pletcher on Saturday sent out Spinoff to a close runner-up finish in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds and, on March 9, the promising Outshine was second in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Downs Derby. 

The horses are Pletcher’s leading Kentucky Derby points earners, with Cutting Humor sitting fifth with 50 on the latest list put out by Churchill Downs. Spinoff is ninth with 40 and Outshine is 20th with 20. 

A day after announcing that the Grade 3 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint had become the track’s first Win and You’re In Breeders’ Cup Challenge Race, Kentucky Downs on Tuesday released its full stakes schedule, topped by Grade 3 Kentucky Turf Cup, a race that with Kentucky-bred purse incentives carries a purse of up to $1 million.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Trainer Jinks Fires said Tuesday jockey Stewart Elliott will likely ride Gray Attempt in the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 13 with the horse’s last-race rider, Jon Court, committed to Long Range Toddy. 

Court was aboard Gray Attempt for a victory Saturday in the $125,000 Gazebo Stakes at Oaklawn. He was subbing for Shaun Bridgmohan, the regular rider of Gray Attempt who is recovering from injury. The Gazebo came a week after Court won a division of the Grade 2, $750,000 Rebel at Oaklawn with Long Range Toddy.

ARCADIA, Calif. - For a jockey who has never ridden the champion Game Winner in a race, Joe Talamo has developed a high level of expertise regarding the colt.

Talamo has frequently worked Game Winner, including a half-mile workout in 48.80 seconds at Santa Anita on Tuesday. The workout moved Game Winner closer to his second start of 2019 in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 6, a key prep for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 4.

Joel Rosario will ride Game Winner in the $1 million Santa Anita Derby.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Ransomed and Tyfosha, who have both spent time racing in Southern California, meet in Thursday’s featured eighth race at Oaklawn. The optional $16,000 claiming sprint for fillies and mares carries first-level allowance conditions. It will be run at six furlongs and it drew a field of 11.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Whitmore is gearing up for next month’s Grade 3, $500,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap at Oaklawn Park.

He drilled five furlongs in 59.40 seconds on a fast track at Oaklawn on Saturday. It was his first move since winning the $150,000 Hot Springs Stakes by a length and a half March 9. In that race, Whitmore covered six furlongs in 1:09.39 on a good track, and his Beyer Speed Figure of 104 is the best number put up this meet at Oaklawn.