OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Mister Hayes will be cutting back in distance while Storm Prophet will be stretching out as both horses attempt to extend winning streaks in Thursday’s featured first-level allowance race at Aqueduct.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trevor McCarthy will ride Firenze Fire in Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct and on Monday he got acquainted with the multiple graded stakes winner, guiding him through a half-mile workout in 49.18 seconds over the Belmont Park training track.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Todd Pletcher won with six of his 11 starters here last week (Jan. 24-28), including three wins on the Pegasus undercard, as the superstar trainer lengthened his lead atop the Gulfstream standings.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – It will only be the first Saturday in February, but Dale Romans will already have the first Saturday in May in mind when the Holy Bull Stakes is run at Gulfstream Park for the 29th time.

Romans said Monday he intends to enter as many as four horses in the Grade 2, $350,000 Holy Bull. Entries for a big Saturday card were to be drawn here Wednesday.

Total handle on Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., including all horizontal wagers ending in the race, was $16.4 million, up 3.8 percent compared with wagering of $15.8 million last year on the inaugural Pegasus, according to charts of the races produced by Equibase.

West Coast and Collected were headed back to California on Monday from Florida’s Gulfstream Park, and while immediate plans for both were not yet mapped out, trainer Bob Baffert on Monday offered a general outline.

West Coast was a strong second behind Gun Runner on Saturday in the $16.3 million Pegasus World Cup, and with the retirement of Gun Runner, West Coast emerges as the ante-post favorite for Horse of the Year in 2018. He was last year’s champion 3-year-old male, and on Sunday, though beaten 2 1/2 lengths by Gun Runner, he was more than 10 lengths clear of everyone else.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Paradise Woods, one of the nation’s leading 3-year-old fillies of 2017, was recently diagnosed with an abscess in a foot that has delayed a return to full training for the two-time Grade 1 stakes winner.

In January, Paradise Woods was briefly sidelined by an illness detected in the weeks after she finished second to Unique Bella in the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita.

Trainer Richard Mandella said Sunday that Paradise Woods is not expected to miss significant training time because of the recent setback.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Peace, a maiden race winner Dec. 30, will have his stakes debut in Saturday’s Grade 3 Robert Lewis Stakes for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita against a familiar rival.

At Del Mar on Thanksgiving, Shivermetimbers beat Peace by a head in a one-mile maiden race on dirt. From trainer Richard Mandella’s perspective, Peace has changed in the more than two months since that race.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Reactions in the aftermath of Saturday’s $16.3 million Pegasus World Cup ran the gamut in the camps of the two top local contenders in the event, from elation among the connections of third-place finisher Gunnevera to the disappointment expressed by trainer Jorge Navarro following Sharp Azteca’s troubled eighth-place finish.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Army Mule, absent since earning a 90 Beyer Speed Figure winning his career debut by 8 1/2 lengths last spring at Belmont Park, makes his much anticipated return and figures to be heavily favored against just five rivals in Wednesday’s co-featured fourth race to be decided under first-level allowance and optional-claiming conditions at six furlongs for a $51,000 purse.