Oaklawn Park drew record handle on Arkansas Derby Day April 14, helping the track realize double-digit gains in handle during its 55-date meet. The Hot Springs, Ark., track wrapped up its season with the Arkansas Derby card, but will be racing at this time next year as Oaklawn will stretch its season into May.

Handle on Oaklawn’s races from all sources averaged $3,812,644 a card at this meet, up 15 percent from 2017, according to figures released by the track.

CHURCHILL DOWNS

Track: Fast

Weather: Sunny

Temperature: 49

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Following almost a week of relative inactivity, the action picked up appreciably Friday on the Kentucky Derby/Oaks watch at Churchill Downs. Eleven prospective starters – five for the Derby and six for the Oaks – worked on a clear, crisp morning, beginning shortly after the racetrack opened at 5:15 and continuing until after the second renovation break nearly four hours later.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Norm McKnight won his first Woodbine training title in 2017, and picked up right where he left off during the opening weekend of the 2018 season, recording four wins from his first six starts.

“It wasn’t too bad,” McKnight said. “I was certainly surprised. The horses ran well and it went well. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Pink Lloyd recorded his ninth consecutive win, all in Woodbine stakes, in last Saturday’s Jacques Cartier Stakes, just two days after being named 2017 Canadian Horse of the Year. He will aim to make it 10 in a row in the $100,000 New Providence Stakes on May 13, trainer Robert Tiller said.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Though nominated to Saturday’s Grade 3 Westchester here, Irish War Cry will likely pass that race and point to the Grade 3, $300,000 Pimlico Special on May 18, trainer Graham Motion said.

Irish War Cry, winner of last year’s Wood Memorial and runner-up in the Belmont Stakes, finished last of six in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile on March 31. Motion said that Irish War Cry came out of that race with a case of the thumps, an electrolyte imbalance.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Several of trainer Christophe Clement’s stakes horses arrived in New York from South Florida this week and are being geared up for races on the June 9 Belmont Stakes undercard.

Lull, winner of the Grade 3 Honey Fox at Gulfstream Park in her seasonal debut, will be trained up to the Grade 1 Just a Game going a mile.

“She came in yesterday, had her first day back on the main track today, and looks well,” Clement said Friday.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Had things gone according to plan, trainer Ralph Nicks would this weekend be putting the finishing touches on Caledonia Road’s preparation for a start in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs.

But this is horse racing, and more often than not things don’t go according to plan. Thus, on Sunday, Nicks will be at Belmont Park watching Caledonia Road – the champion 2-year-old filly of 2017 – begin her 3-year-old campaign in a second-level allowance race at a mile.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After months of flying all over the country to ride top prospects for the Kentucky Derby, jockey Javier Castellano has wound up right where he started, choosing to ride Audible, whom he rode to victory in the Holy Bull back in January, as Castellano tries to win the Derby for the first time in his highly decorated career.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Justify, the unbeaten early-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby, will ship to Churchill Downs in peak condition after a strong seven-furlong workout Friday at Santa Anita.

Working at 6:30 over a freshly renovated surface on a cool, overcast morning, Justify broke off at the 5 1/2-furlong marker, three to four lengths behind a workmate. Justify caught his rival at the finish, completed his seven-furlong drill on the clubhouse turn, and galloped out a mile. He did it easily.

Mahoning Valley Race Course in Ohio reported a record handle per race in statistics for its recently concluded winter-spring meeting.

Mahoning Valley reported gross handle of $65,358,215 during the 63-day meet and an average of $127,156 wagered per race, a spike of 24 percent from $102,873 per race for the 2017 winter-spring meet. The per-race average is a record for any meet held at Mahoning Valley since its 2014 opening.

The track also reported that field size grew, with an average of 8.12 wagering interests per race, compared to 7.78 for the 2017 meet.