HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Eddie Plesa Sr., whose son, trainer Eddie Plesa Jr., is a mainstay on the New Jersey and south Florida circuits, died Thursday. He was 90.

The elder Plesa left home at age 12 and won his first race as a jockey a year later at Ak Sar Ben. He was the second trainer to come through the stablegate when Calder Race Course opened in 1970 and had horses for such notable owners as Fred Hooper Jr. and Ollie Cohen’s Crown Stable before retiring in 2011 with 410 career victories. His best horses over the years included Cute Sketch, Bazoom, and Shuffle Dance.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jockey Luis Saez rode seven winners on Wednesday’s 11-race program at Gulfstream Park, tying a track record set by Jerry Bailey in 1996 and equaled last July by Tyler Gaffalione.

Saez scored aboard Lawless Lady ($7.60) in race 2, Admirable Kiss ($4.20) in race 3, Charge Card ($26.60) in race 5, Appa ($6.60) in race 7, Emperor John ($3.80) in race 8, Arch Daddy ($10) in race 9, and Arcelor ($6) in race 10.

Canterbury Park will host 35 stakes races worth $2.375 million during its 2018 racing season, the Twin Cities-area track announced in a press release Wednesday.

The stakes schedule includes three more races than the 2017 program and is worth $372,000 more than last year. According to the release, it’s the most lucrative stakes program in track history.

Fair Grounds Racecourse in New Orleans won’t allow horses based in New York and Maryland to ship onto its grounds, the track announced in a news release Wednesday.

The ban was put in place because of positive tests for equine herpesvirus from racehorses in both states. A barn at Belmont Park in New York housing horses trained by Linda Rice remains under quarantine following a positive herpesvirus test there, but Laurel Park lifted a single-barn quarantine earlier this week after a horse with a positive herpes test was re-tested and returned a negative result.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Linda Rice had three horses nominated to Saturday’s Toboggan Stakes but didn’t enter any, as her Barn 44 at Belmont remains under quarantine until a horse who tested positive for the equine herpesvirus on Jan. 9 tests negatively for it in a subsequent exam.

While Rice was considering running Gravesend winner Do Share in the Toboggan, she was never really planning on running Seymourdini. Instead, Seymourdini will point to the $150,000 Stymie Stakes on March 10.

Maurer Power, runner-up in the Grade 2 Demoiselle at Aqueduct in December, had to be euthanized Jan. 13 after a morning training accident at the Palm Meadows training center in Boynton Beach, Fla.

Trainer John Servis said Maurer Power threw her rider shortly after entering the racetrack, then crashed into a support pole on the outer rail, severely injuring a leg. She was owned by the Cash Is King Stable of Afleet Alex fame.

“It was absolutely devastating,” said Servis. “We had big plans for that filly.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The most accomplished horse in the field could very well be the longest shot on the board in Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Toboggan Stakes at Aqueduct.

Green Gratto, a Grade 1 winner who has earned more than $1.1 million, will make his 62nd start in the Toboggan, run at seven furlongs. Green Gratto, an 8-year-old New Jersey-bred son of Here’s Zealous, was one of six male sprinters entered in the Toboggan, a field that also includes Grade 1 winner Takaful.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A pair of longstanding turf fixtures, the Grade 3 W.L. McKnight and Grade 3 La Prevoyante, are among the seven stakes that will precede the $16 million Pegasus World Cup on a sensational Saturday program at Gulfstream Park.

Fields for the entire 12-race card were drawn Wednesday, with both the McKnight and La Prevoyante drawing competitive fields of older turf horses going 1 1/2 miles. First post is 11:30 a.m. Eastern.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Friday’s second-level allowance/optional $62,500 claiming feature at Aqueduct lost its favorite when Just Got Out won Sunday’s Ladies Handicap, thus making her ineligible for this race.

What remains is an evenly matched group of five fillies and mares, many seeking to return to a race in their past form that would make them winners in this one-mile heat.

Trainer Bart Hone hit a milestone of 2,000 Thoroughbred wins in North America on Tuesday, when he sent out Snowbound Jones to capture the seventh race at Sunland Park. The horse held on for a head win in the $6,250 claiming sprint and paid $10.80.

Hone won the first race of his career on May 29, 1978, according to Daily Racing Form records. He has had 10,625 starters, and those horses have earned $22.9 million. Hone has won 123 stakes with horses such as Ducky Drake, Black Hills, Wiredfortwotwenty, and My Bikini Fell Off.