New York racing’s landscape is about to undergo a significant change.

The New York Racing Association will remove the inner track at Aqueduct and replace it with a second turf course. Further, the main dirt track will be renovated to allow winter racing on it.

The project to remove the inner track began this week – shortly after the Aqueduct backstretch was closed for training for the summer – and should be completed by the time Aqueduct reopens for training in September, and certainly by the time racing returns in November.

The Louisiana Downs meet that opens Saturday features a slew of changes, including moving the Super Derby to turf, a restructured race week, and new wagers. The 84-date season in Bossier City will run through Sept. 27.

Louisiana Downs, which operates a slots casino, also is expanding its racing-related events with a qualifier for the National Handicapping Championship. It will offer two spots in the Las Vegas finale during an ontrack tournament June 17.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – About 1,900 horses reside on the backstretch at Churchill Downs. Every morning, they are groomed, tacked up, and led to the racetrack, where they jog, gallop, or breeze, and then return to their stable.

For a racetracker, the process hardly could look more commonplace. Yet every time the father-and-son training team of Mark and Norman Casse sees a relatively plain-looking bay horse with a white blaze accomplish this mundane task, it eases their minds.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Graham Motion and jockey Rajiv Maragh have become very close friends over the last few years. It did not have to turn out that way.

In 2011, Motion won the Kentucky Derby with Animal Kingdom, and Maragh finished third on Mucho Macho Man. It was an incident in that year’s Belmont Stakes that could have ended this friendship before it began.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It was an early-spring morning at Keeneland in 1989 when one of Carl Nafzger’s horses came galloping by, with his newly hired exercise rider impressing the trainer.

“Sharon,” he said, turning to his assistant, Sharon Peters, “don’t let that Australian boy out of my sight.”

Isabelle de Tomaso says her favorite racecar was a red OSCA 750S. De Tomaso is still fond of horsepower that comes in a red package, only now it has four hooves instead of four tires.

A New Jersey homebred, the chestnut colt Irish War Cry is revving up for the Kentucky Derby for de Tomaso, whose father was the late Amory L. Haskell, the first president and chairman of the Monmouth Park Jockey Club and the namesake of its signature race.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The racing week begins at Santa Anita on Thursday with a carryover of $349,792 in the single-ticket jackpot portion of the $2 pick six.

The pick six covers the third through eighth races on a program that begins at 1 p.m. Pacific. The pool of new money in the pick six could surpass $150,000.

The single-ticket portion of the pool has not been hit since April 6 when a bettor in Lake Forest, Calif., about 60 miles south of Santa Anita, purchased a ticket for $14,400 that returned $1,199,286. The bet was placed at a satellite wagering facility.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – As if the Kentucky Derby itself isn’t enough, the racing action Saturday at Churchill Downs will be even more significant – and fun – with another half-dozen graded races to entertain fans beforehand.

All six should have some sort of impact within their respective divisions, and not one of them is a bad one. All but the first one, the Humana Distaff, are linked in multirace wagers that end with the Derby. First post for the 14-race card is 10:30 a.m. Eastern, with the Humana Distaff going as the sixth at 1:13. The Derby is race 12.

Lone Star Park leading rider Iram Diego will be reuniting with one of the best horses he has ever ridden Sunday for the track’s Grade 3, $200,000 Steve Sexton Mile. Iron Fist gave Diego a notable win in February, capturing Sam Houston’s premier dirt race for older horses, the $100,000 Maxxam Gold Cup.

Dominick Schettino will watch Saturday’s 143rd Kentucky Derby with mixed emotions.

As the original trainer and co-owner of Always Dreaming, Schettino can’t help but feel some remorse about no longer having a stake in a horse who has a very live chance to win the world’s most famous horse race.