HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Dale Romans has returned to south Florida for the winter, his barn stacked and loaded, particularly with soon-to-turn 3-year-old prospects led by Grade 1 winner Free Drop Billy and Hollywood Star.

Darren Fleming might have pursued a jockey career had he not signed on to work for Steve Asmussen in the early 1990s. Apparently, there were just two obstacles keeping him from the saddle.

“I had a lack of talent – and [I had] excess weight,” deadpanned Fleming.

The featured eighth race Sunday at Fair Grounds is a second-level turf-route allowance also open to $40,000 claimers. It has 11 horses in the main body plus four main-track-only entrants, and on its own would go a long way to holding together the entire program.

But there is much more to this card, mainly in the form of promising 2-year-olds.

Blu Moon Ace, the second-place finisher in the Sept. 16 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash at Laurel Park, has been disqualified from the Grade 3 race because of a positive test for an excessive level of cobalt, the mineral that has been used under the belief that it can have effects similar to expensive blood-doping drugs.

Trainer Luis Carvajal’s stable has grown to 15 horses over the past year, 10 of whom, including his top sprinter Imperial Hint, are spending the winter at Tampa Bay Downs. Carvajal’s other horses are stabled at Parx.

“I wanted to continue training with the horses,” Carvajal said. “It is hard up north because of the weather and track conditions. I have a couple of new clients and some horses who want to run on turf. The turf course at Tampa is magnificent.”

The Sunday races at Laurel Park are anchored by a salty third-level optional-claiming sprint, which has attracted the solid Maryland-bred Grandiflora, and the newly relocated runners Something Awesome and Irish Colonel.

The six entrants are closely matched ability-wise. The race is further complicated by the lack of a true front-runner. Hickory Hill, who is trained by Mike Geralis, is typically a stalker but could find himself on the lead.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Catholic Boy, impressive winner of the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes here Dec. 2, returned to the track Thursday morning, jogging once around the track at Bridlewood Farm in Ocala, Fla.

His connections are still formulating when and where to bring him back to the races next year, but the leading option is the Grade 3, $250,000 Sam F. Davis on Feb. 10 at Tampa Bay Downs.

John Panagot, racing manager for Robert LaPenta, said the Sam Davis makes sense from a timing perspective and it also is a relatively easy ship as it is less than two hours from Bridlewood.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer David Jacobson could run as many as three horses in the $100,000 Gravesend Stakes on Dec. 23 though he has other options for his trio of sprinters Stallwalkin’ Dude, Chief Lion, and Great Stuff.

Stallwalkin’ Dude won last year’s Gravesend after running second in the Fall Highweight. This year, Stallwalkin’ Dude won the Grade 3 Fall Highweight in what Jacobson said might have been the gelding’s “best race of his career.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Ollie Figgins III, the Mid-Atlantic-based trainer who has runners in both of this weekend’s New York Stallion Series stakes at Aqueduct, will have a string of approximately 10 horses in New York for the winter.

“Just trying to get my foot in the door and see how we fare,” Figgins said.

More than $650,000 has been raised to aid people affected by the wildfire that struck the San Luis Rey Downs training center on Dec. 7, according to a statement released by Del Mar on Wednesday.

The donations were collected through a GoFundMe account administered by Santa Anita and Del Mar. Santa Anita’s parent company, The Stronach Group, owns San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall, Calif. Del Mar is housing approximately 250 horses displaced by the fire. Del Mar is open for training for those horses as San Luis Rey Downs undergoes renovation.