With the Pimlico meet in the books, Maryland racing on Friday returns to Laurel Park, where, except for a short break for the Timonium fair season, it will remain for the rest of the year.

Racing will be held at the Laurel summer meet Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until Aug. 21. Fridays will be twilight cards with a 3:40 p.m. Eastern first post. The Saturday and Sunday cards will begin at 1:25 p.m.

The seven-day Timonium meet will run from Aug. 28 through Labor Day. Racing will then return to Laurel on Sept. 9 and continue through Dec. 31.

Chris Griffin, the race-caller at the Oak Tree at Pleasanton meet, has had a varied background at the microphone. Before he began calling horse races, he was the announcer for the Harlem Globetrotters and for the National Hot Rod Association. Griffin has called the races at Ferndale and at the most recent Portland Meadows meeting.

As a child, Griffin would make a game out of rolling golf balls around a self-made track.

Two Thoroughbred stakes are on tap this weekend. On Saturday, 2-year-old fillies meet in the $50,000-added Juan Gonzalez Memorial. Sunday’s feature is the $100,000 Everett Nevin Stakes for 2-year-old California-breds. Both races are at 5 1/2 furlongs.

Two Arabian stakes also will be run Saturday: the $48,000-estimated Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Arabian Cup and the $41,000-estimated H.H. Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship.

The sudden and surprising retirement of Russell Baze has shaken up the jockey colony in Northern California.

Top young riders who could benefit from Baze’s retirement include Juan Hernandez, second to Baze at the last Golden Gate Fields meet; Ricardo Gonzalez, who won the Oak Tree Handicap aboard Bronze Star for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer last Saturday; and 2011 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice Kyle Frey.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Tampa Bay Downs will hold its fourth annual Summer Festival of Racing on Thursday and Friday with a pair of eight-race cards consisting mostly of lower-level turf races.

The festival provides the track with status as a year-round meeting, enabling the track to control its simulcasting revenue. Thursday’s card marks the official conclusion of the 2015-16 meeting, and Friday’s card begins the 2016-17 meeting.

There will be six turf races Thursday and seven Friday, and there will be mandatory payouts both days on the pick five and Super Hi 5 wagers.

Jockey David Flores, a winner of more than 3,500 races, will ride for the first time since last September in Thursday’s fifth race at Belmont Park.

Flores, 48, has won 156 graded stakes, including three Breeders' Cup races. A top rider in California for many years, Flores has won riding titles at Santa Anita, Del Mar, and Fairplex. His mounts have purse earnings in excess of $151 million.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gary Stevens will make a rare appearance here Friday. The Hall of Famer rider is named aboard Mac Daddy Mac for trainer Kathy Ritvo in the featured eighth race, a six-furlong allowance/optional claimer for Florida-breds.

Mac Daddy Mac has not started since finishing second with Stevens aboard in the Grade 3 Bob Hope last November at Del Mar.  

Stevens won the Sunshine Millions Classic here for Ritvo aboard Mucho Macho Man in 2014. His most notable local victory came in the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile aboard Anees for trainer Alex Hassinger Jr.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Brad Cox will attempt to make his former claimer Spelling Again a two-time Grade 2 winner when he ships her to town from her home base at Churchill Downs for Saturday’s $250,000 Princess Rooney.

Recruiting Ready, who won his career debut in smashing fashion May 28 at Pimlico, is one of six 2-year-olds expected for the Grade 3, $100,000 Bashford Manor Stakes on closing night of the spring/summer meet Saturday.

Recruiting Ready, from the first crop of Algorithms, rolled to a 10 1/4-length victory in a maiden special weight at Pimlico. He got his 4 1/2 furlongs in 51.78 seconds, just 0.28 seconds off the track mark of 51.50 established by Countess Diana on June 6, 1997. Countess Diana would go on to be a multiple Grade 1 winner and the champion 2-year-old filly of 1997.

Jockey Channing Hill won his 1,000th career race last Friday at Churchill Downs, piloting the 5-year-old mare Shut the Gate to win a claiming race for trainer Chris Hartman.

Through Sunday, Hill had won 1,001 races from 9,308 starts, with 1,046 seconds and 1,160 thirds, for $40.5 million in mount earnings. He has won 16 graded stakes since 2003, with the most recent coming aboard Pleuven in the Grade 2 Wise Dan Stakes on June 18 at Churchill Downs. His lone Grade 1 victory came aboard First Defence in the 2008 Forego Stakes at Saratoga.