ARCADIA, Calif. – There are ebbs and flows to the Kentucky Derby and its prep season every year, but for the past few years, it is California-based runners who have had the most success on the first Saturday in May, and they have more than outpunched their weight when it comes to the Derby preps, too.

WHO’S HOT

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Norm Casse has assembled a stable of about eight active runners as his solo training career gets under way in earnest this spring. The 34-year-old son of trainer Mark Casse has an 18-stall allotment at Keeneland, “but there are quite a few 2-year-olds still to come in.”

“I’m hoping to maybe have five or six starts this meet before we move everything over to Churchill after the Derby,” he said.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Chad Brown ran zero stakes horses last Saturday on the huge Florida Derby card at Gulfstream Park, perhaps hoping that good things will come to those who wait. Brown is absolutely loaded for the first half of the Keeneland spring meet, with Analyze It in the opening-day Transylvania, Good Magic in the Blue Grass, Rushing Fall in the Grade 2 Appalachian on Sunday, and another handful of major contenders in stakes through next Saturday, April 14.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Two of the first three races of the spring meet are 2-year-old dashes in which trainer Wesley Ward surely will dominate pre-race speculation. Ward has become synonymous with success in Keeneland baby races, having won a whopping 35 of them since the 2007 spring meet, having unleashed such precocious talents as Judy the Beauty, Undrafted, Hootenanny, and Lady Aurelia.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – It’s fairly easy to predict who the favorite will be in each of the five graded stakes Saturday at Keeneland, but none more so than for the Ashland Stakes.

Monomoy Girl undoubtedly will be a short price in the Grade 1 Ashland as trainer Brad Cox looks to get the filly back to his hometown of Louisville as the favorite for the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs.

Jorge Vargas Jr. begins the Laurel Park race week with a four-win lead in the jockey standings, but his advantage has dwindled the last three weeks as he has gone cold and seven-pound apprentice Wes Hamilton has been on a tear.

Coming into the March 16 card at Laurel, Vargas had 35 wins at the meet and led Hamilton by 14. Since then, Vargas has gone 1 for 45 with 15 seconds, while Hamilton has led all Laurel riders with 11 wins from 52 rides.

The Rainbow 6 carryover at Laurel Park on Friday will be $214,705. The wager has not been hit in 26 cards, dating back to Feb. 4.

The Rainbow 6 would have been hit Monday if 45-1 Hard Drive had won the last race.

On Monday, $104,741 was bet into the Rainbow 6. Six winners paid $25,119 for a 20-cent wager.

In the Laurel Park winner’s circle following the Beyond the Wire Stakes on March 17, trainer Eddie Coletti Jr. was asked where he might next start Smokinpaddylassie, who had just improved her perfect record to three wins. Coletti didn’t hesitate and said the Grade 2 Gazelle at Aqueduct was likely because it offered qualifying points for the Kentucky Oaks.

The connections of Blamed took time after last month’s victory in the Sunland Park Oaks to debate their options for her next start, and on Tuesday trainer Joel Marr said the plan is to target the Kentucky Oaks on May 4 at Churchill Downs.

“It’s all going to depend on how she does," Marr said Tuesday of Blamed, who is based at Sunland Park. "She’s going to work on Friday. If everything goes well, we’ll know more after that.

​“She’s been doing really well. She’s happy, galloping strong and eating good. So far, so good.”