The slowest raw time in recent Lecomte Stakes history also produced the lowest Beyer Speed Figure in recent Lecomte Stakes history, but trainer Brad Cox believes Disco Time will continue improving through the winter and into the spring of his 3-year-old season, and that the figure he earned Saturday does not define the colt.

Laurel Park in Maryland has canceled its nine-race Sunday card due to the winter storm that has descended into the Midwest, the mid-Atlantic, and the entire Northeastern seaboard.

Laurel sent out notice of the cancellation early on Sunday morning, just in advance of the arriving freezing rain and a forecast of snow later in the day.

Laurel opened its 2025 season on Friday. The Saturday card featured four minor stakes races. Sunday’s nine-race card did not feature any stakes races.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Despite overnight rains throughout the South Florida area, four potential starters for the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational worked locally on Saturday including Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan at Gulfstream Park and likely favorite Locked over his winter base at Palm Beach Downs.

Dirt-route stakes winners First Resort and Poster, both Godolphin homebreds trained by Eoin Harty, are stuck in a holding pattern, preparation for their 3-year-old debuts compromised by winter weather in Kentucky.

First Resort won the Kentucky Jockey Club on Nov. 30 at Churchill Downs, earning a solid 88 Beyer Speed Figure, and a week later Poster captured the Remsen at Aqueduct with an 83 Beyer. Harty had both colts based at Turfway Park, where Poster last posted a timed workout on Jan. 3, First Resort on Dec. 27. 

Bill Gray, the Northern California owner and breeder, was on an airplane on the afternoon of Dec. 15 at the time his colt Drop Um was running the Bay Meadows Juvenile in Pleasanton.

“They were coming around the turn and the wifi went out on the plane,” Gray recalled on Friday. “I had to sit there for two hours to find out what went on.”

Jockey Kazushi Kimura was off his two mounts at Santa Anita on Friday after sustaining a minor leg injury in the starting gate on Thursday.

Kimura is booked to ride six races on Saturday, including the strong favorite Big City Lights in the $125,000 California Cup Sprint, but needed a day off on Friday to continue his recovery, according to his agent, Brian Beach.

“He’s not going to make it” on Friday, Beach said late Friday morning. “He’s still a little body sore. He doesn’t feel he can give 100 percent today.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – White Abarrio completed serious preparations for the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational on Thursday morning, breezing an easy half-mile in 48.27 seconds over a quicker-than-usual track at Gulfstream Park.

Going in company with regular workmate Silver Moonlight, White Abarrio posted a 24.40 opening quarter-mile split and was hard held to finish about a head in front while working nearest the rail. He then pulled away readily on the gallop-out, easing up five furlongs in 1:01.29.

Watchtower, the winner of the Grade 3 Autumn Miss Stakes at one mile in October but only fifth of 11 in the Grade 1 American Oaks on Dec. 26, will be sent to Gulfstream Park for the Grade 2 Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational at 1 1/16 miles on Jan. 25.

“She got invited and we’re going,” trainer Richard Baltas said. “She’ll probably be a longshot. The owners want to go and the horse is doing good.

“Not everyone gets invited.”

Inexperienced 6-year-olds are a rarity in American racing. By that age, many are well into their career or off the track.

Our Bucky Charm, who starts in an allowance race for California-breds at Santa Anita on Saturday, is an exception. A winner of his first two starts, Our Bucky Charm returns from a layoff of nearly eight months in the day’s sixth race for his third race.

“He’s a talented horse,” trainer Mike Puype said on Thursday. “He’s had minor issues that kept him from getting to the races.”