OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin’s first three wins of 2018 came within a two-hour span at Aqueduct on Saturday when Benevolence broke a 14-race losing streak in a New York-bred allowance race, followed later on the card by impressive first-level allowance wins by Spieth and Westwood.

Westwood, a 4-year-old gelding by Bernardini out of the two-time champion mare Ashado, won a first-level allowance race by 2 3/4 lengths, running 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15.83 and earning a 104 Beyer Speed Figure.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Following last Saturday’s three-win afternoon at Aqueduct, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin is looking ahead to the next two Saturdays, when he will have the likely favorite for New York’s first two graded stakes of the year.

This Saturday, McLaughlin plans to run Takaful in the Grade 3, $100,000 Toboggan Stakes at seven furlongs. McLaughlin is hoping to use the race as a springboard to the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen on March 31 at Meydan.

ARCADIA, Calif. – City of Light, the winner of his stakes debut in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26, is likely to have his first start outside of California in the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn Park on Feb. 19, trainer Michael McCarthy said.

City of Light led throughout to win the $300,000 Malibu Stakes at seven furlongs by two lengths. The $500,000 Razorback Handicap is run at 1 1/16 miles and will be City of Light’s first start around two turns.

The Razorback purse and distance were two appealing factors, McCarthy said.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The California Cup program for statebreds here on Saturday has added a $100,000 race for 3-year-old turf sprinters, but two races for 3-year-olds held last year on this day will be run in February instead.

The $100,000 California Cup Turf Sprint for 3-year-olds at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course is a new race and one of four stakes at Santa Anita Saturday.

Two $200,000 stakes previously run on the California Cup program will be run Feb. 19 – the California Cup Derby at 1 1/16 miles and the California Cup Oaks at a mile on turf.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The 5-year-old mare Greta G arrived at trainer Richard Mandella’s stable last September from a highly regarded source.

Mandella was at the Keeneland September yearling sale when English trainer John Gosden pulled him aside to ask if he would take Greta G. Mandella quickly agreed.

“When I got home, she was already here,” Mandella recalled last weekend.

Greta G will start for the first time in the United States and for Mandella on Thursday in an allowance race with a $62,500 claiming option on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita.

Forever Unbridled is likely to be feted this week with an Eclipse Award as champion older female of 2017, but even as that takes place the course of her career is uncertain.

Forever Unbridled worked Dec. 11 at Fair Grounds while she was still under consideration for the Pegasus World Cup Invitational, but once the plug was pulled on those plans, trainer Dallas Stewart took the mare off a work pattern, though she is still galloping and “looks great,” Stewart said.

When trainer Bret Calhoun saw the half-mile fraction in the second race last Friday at Fair Grounds pop up, 46.35 seconds, he figured his pacesetting trainee Classy Act would run out of gas. Instead, Classy Act probably ran her way into the Rachel Alexandra Stakes on Feb. 17 at Fair Grounds.

Classy Act, a 3-year-old filly, was part of a first-level allowance race being contested at one mile and 70 yards, and at Fair Grounds, a half-mile split under 47 seconds typically spells certain doom.

“When I saw how fast she was going, I figured she was cooked,” Calhoun said.

Steve Asmussen-trained 3-year-olds Principe Guilherme, Snapper Sinclair, and Zing Zang finished second, third, and fourth in the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 13 at Fair Grounds, and two days later, the Asmussen-trained pair of Combatant and Tap Daddy finished second and third in the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn.

Jockey Jevian Toledo was released from the University of Maryland Medical Center’s shock/trauma unit Sunday night after being injured in a Laurel Park training accident that morning.

Toledo was working a Jamie Ness-trained horse who fell. The horse got to his feet after the incident and ran back to the barn.

X-rays taken at the Howard County Hospital in Columbia, Md., revealed compression fractures of the T7 and T8 vertebrae in Toledo’s mid-back region. He also was found to have a punctured lung.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Whether purchasing a horse privately or obtaining one through the claim box, owner Michael Dubb continues to prove adept at picking stakes winners.

On Sunday, Control Group, a horse Dubb claimed for $62,500 almost exactly one year ago, won his second consecutive stakes, cruising to a four-length victory under Kendrick Carmouche in the $100,000 Alex M. Robb at Aqueduct. That victory came one day after the 3-year-old World of Trouble, a private purchase Dubb made last fall, won the $75,000 Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.