ARCADIA, Calif. – Battle of Midway and Reach the World finished a neck apart in an optional claimer for 3-year-olds in Thursday’s seventh race at Santa Anita. There is a good chance they will see each other again in early spring.

Trainers Jerry Hollendorfer and Bob Baffert said they are strongly considering the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 8 for both colts, who had their third career starts Thursday.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The field for the Grade 2, $900,000 Rebel Stakes came into clearer focus Friday at Oaklawn, where potential starters Petrov, Uncontested, and Silver Dust put in works for the Kentucky Derby points race set for next Saturday.

The Rebel will share a card with two other stakes, the Grade 2, $350,000 Azeri for fillies and mares and the $250,000 Essex Handicap. Nominations for the three races were to close Friday, with entries to be taken Wednesday. The card generally ranks as the second-biggest of the meet, behind Arkansas Derby Day on April 15.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Elizabeth Dobles has had her trainer’s license for only a few months. But it didn’t take the 26-year-old long to make a big impression at Gulfstream, winning both ends of Thursday’s late daily double with longshots Arty’sbourbongirl and Swapl.

Dobles, who also gallops her horses, served as an assistant in New York for trainer Jeremiah Englehart before striking out on her own this winter.

The Pennsylvania Racing Commission has approved Penn National’s request to hold four daytime cards in May and June.

Penn National, which typically starts its programs at 6 p.m. Eastern, will have a first post of 1:30 p.m. on Triple Crown Saturdays – May 6, May 20, and June 10. The Grantville, Pa., racino also has moved up the starting time for its Penn Mile Day program, June 3, to 3:45 p.m.

The Penn Mile will be run as a Grade 2 for the first time this year. The earlier post time will allow Penn National to run several other turf races on the card before sunset.

Trainer Jonathan Maldonado is off to his best start since moving to Maryland from Puerto Rico in 2010.

Through Friday, Maldonado was 8 for 22 on the year and had already equaled his win total from 2016, when he sent 68 horses to the gate. He has won four of his last five starts dating to Feb. 20.

Maldonado, who turns 33 Sunday, began training in Puerto Rico in 2004. He had a good-sized stable there but moved to Maryland, where his older brother Rafael lived, and started over with a two-horse stable.

Hawaakom, one of the best older dirt horses at Fair Grounds, worked five furlongs in 1:01 on Thursday at Fair Grounds, his first timed breeze since he finished second behind Gun Runner on Feb. 20 in the Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn Park.

Wes Hawley, who trains Hawaakom and is his majority owner, said Hawaakom still is on track to race April 1 in the New Orleans Handicap here.

The 3-year-old gelding Guest Suite, who won the Lecomte Stakes and was a solid fourth in the Risen Star Stakes, had his first work since the Risen Star, going a half-mile in 49.60 seconds on Tuesday.

“It was a little maintenance half-mile,” trainer Neil Howard said. “He went nice and smooth. He’s doing fine.”

Guest Suite remains on track to make his next start April 1 in the Louisiana Derby.

The 8-year-old gelding Hogy ran so well in winning the $50,000 Colonel Power Stakes on Feb. 25 at Fair Grounds that he was invited to the $1 million Al Quoz Sprint on the Dubai World Cup undercard.

But while it’s always nice to be invited to the party, owner William Stiritz and his private trainer, Scott Becker, respectfully declined that invitation, Becker said Thursday. Hogy runs instead in the $200,000 Shakertown Stakes on April 8 at Keeneland.

There has not been a dominant older-male turf horse at Fair Grounds this winter. Enterprising won the most recent stakes race in the division, the Fair Grounds Handicap on Feb. 25, after finishing second in the Sunshine Millions Turf, a statebred-restricted stakes at Gulfstream Park.

That has trainer Mike Stidham thinking outside the box regarding the 5-year-old mare Zipessa, whom he is considering running against male horses April 1 in the Grade 2 Muniz Memorial.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fl. - Gulfstream Park has released its spring-summer stakes schedule, which offers 29 events worth $3.85 million in purses topped by two “Win and You’re In” Breeders’ Cup races, the Grade 2, $250,000 Princess Rooney and Grade 3, $250,000 Smile Sprint.

The spring-summer meet opens April 5.