HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Blackout Time was made the 8-5 morning-line favorite in a field of 10 for the Grade 2, $1 million Rebel when posts for next Sunday’s race were drawn on Saturday at Oaklawn Park.
Brian Hernandez Jr. has the mount on the Breeders’ Futurity runner-up from post 4 for trainer Kenny McPeek.
Conducted and The Padre, stakes winners at Del Mar in 2025, have resumed training at Santa Anita.
Conducted rejoined trainer O.J. Jauregui’s stable at the beginning of February for an expected return to racing this spring. In his last start, his stakes debut, Conducted won the $201,500 Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance Stakes for 2-year-olds at a mile on turf at Del Mar on Oct. 31, the first of the two days of Breeders’ Cup races.
Jauregui said Conducted is “jogging and having light gallops.
A five-furlong workout at Santa Anita on Sunday will help to determine a March race schedule for Om N Joy, a four-time stakes winner in 2025.
Om N Joy is considered a candidate for the Grade 1 Beholder Mile for fillies and mares at Santa Anita on March 7, but she needs a fast workout to remain on schedule, trainer Aggie Ordonez said on Friday.
“She’s going to have a big workout on Sunday,” Ordonez said. “I really think she needs to work in 59 and change to keep us on track.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Friday morning was a busy one in the local area for potential Fountain of Youth starters with the bulk of the action taking place at the Palm Meadows training center. Bravaro, Solitude Dude, and Napoleon Solo all turned in sharp works a little more than 24 hours before the important Kentucky Derby prep was to be drawn here Saturday afternoon.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Gary Sciacca remembers feeding carrots to Forego when he was too young to even know the horse’s legend. Later in life, Sciacca got to train for and become friends with the likes of Bill Parcells and Bobby Flay. In 1996, Sciacca hung out at the Breeders’ Cup with Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft.
“A lot of great memories,” Sciacca said. “The business has been super to me my whole life. I’m very fortunate and blessed to have had a great career.”
The 5-year-old horse Corporate Power came into Thursday’s seventh race at Fair Grounds with a recency edge over his Steve Asmussen-trained stablemate, Conquest Warrior, another 5-year-old.
Corporate Power had last raced in November 2024, finishing fifth in the Discovery Stakes at Aqueduct. Conquest Warrior, meanwhile, raced for the first time since checking in a distant fourth behind Fierceness in the 2024 Florida Derby.
The Risen Star Stakes this past Saturday at Fair Grounds came three days before Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday. Ash Wednesday marked, for Catholics in New Orleans, the beginning of the solemn 40-day season of Lent. And at Fair Grounds, the 35 days separating the Risen Star and the Louisiana Derby might have been assumed also to mark a period of relatively quiet reflection. The 3-year-old colt Reagan’s Honor was not ready for the party to end.
Nysos earned a cool $3.5 million for his second-place finish to Forever Young in the $20 million Saudi Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last Saturday. Nysos's performance gave trainer Bob Baffert a year-end goal of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
“I’ll work back from there,” Baffert said on Thursday.
Before Shane’s Wonder made his debut at Parx Racing on Tuesday, Alfredo Velazquez received a stunning report from jockey Eliseo Ruiz after a morning workout. The trainer might have been prepared for a comparison to four-time stakes winner Buccherino, the undisputed star of his stable, but he was indignant when Ruiz went a step further describing the unraced colt.
“We knew he was a runner because [Ruiz] told me he’s a better horse than Buccherino,” Velazquez said. “I told him he had to be drinking or smoking or something.“
Jockey Angel Cruz has caught fire in the Mid-Atlantic, boasting a 19 percent strike rate at Laurel Park and Charles Town to begin his 2026 campaign. The pot got even sweeter in Maryland last Saturday, when the journeyman rider took center stage in the $200,000 General George and guided rising star Point Dume to a commanding gate-to-wire victory.
“He’s one of the best sprinters I’ve ridden in my career,” Cruz said. “I think he can go longer, but you could see in the last two races, he’s just improved so much.”
