The Arkansas Derby closes out the Racing Festival of the South. Other major races during the series, which features nine stakes over the final week of the meet, include the Grade 1, $600,000 Apple Blossom Handicap on Friday and the Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap on Saturday.
Racing secretary Pat Pope had seven possible starters for the Apple Blossom as of Friday: Untapable, Call Pat, Streamline, Theogony, Forever Unbridled, Tara’s Tango, and Include Betty.

Ivan Fallunovalot is a notable name missing from the Count Fleet Sprint Handicap on Sunday at Oaklawn Park. He is nursing a quarter crack, trainer Tom Howard said, and is scheduled to be turned out for a short period of time in Arkansas. The horse is headed to the farm of his owner, Lewis Matthews Jr.

Howard said that in about a month Ivan Fallunovalot will rejoin the stable at Lone Star Park. The first stakes objective for the horse, who ran in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint, will be defense of his title in the David M. Vance at Remington Park.

Post positions for the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby will be drawn on Wednesday, and Oaklawn racing secretary Pat Pope was working with a potential list of 11 runners as of Friday. The Arkansas Derby will be run next Saturday.

Pope said the horses on the grounds that he expects to enter in the Arkansas Derby are Whitmore, Luna de Loco, Creator, Gray Sky, Suddenbreakingnews, and Discreetness. Others on the grounds he considers possible are American Pioneer and Dazzling Gem.

Rudy Rodriguez, the leading trainer for the Aqueduct winter meet, is planning to send about 35 hours to Parx Racing for the spring and summer once the quarantine due to equine herpesvirus is lifted at the Bensalem, Pa., track.

The New York Racing Association is planning to close the Aqueduct backstretch for training on May 8. Horsemen based at Aqueduct will either move to Belmont or Saratoga or split their stables between the two facilities, based on stall allotment.

Though Lady Eli has been off the work tab since March 21, trainer Chad Brown said all is well with the undefeated filly, who is attempting to come back from a serious bout with laminitis.

Lady Eli worked four times from Feb. 29 through March 21 but has not breezed the last two weeks.

“She’s been training fine,” Brown said. “She’s had four works. I just wanted to back off of her a little bit. She got re-shod the other day and her feet look perfect. She’ll ship up to New York next week.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – Dressed in Hermes will head straight to the Grade 2, $300,000 American Turf at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day, May 7, after being scratched on Friday morning from the Santa Anita Derby on Saturday, trainer Janet Armstrong said.

Armstrong said that Dressed in Hermes got loose in the stable area at San Luis Rey Downs, where Armstrong is based, on Friday morning, prompting Armstrong to scratch him from the Santa Anita Derby.

ARCADIA, Calif. – A weekday maiden claimer was a milestone win for veteran jockey Matt Garcia at Santa Anita on Thursday.

Garcia won Thursday’s fifth race on Stir Fry ($3.20), his first victory since suffering neck and back injuries in a spill at the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale in August, 2013. Garcia was out of racing while recovering from the injuries, and resumed riding at Santa Anita in late January.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Apprentice jockey Ty Kennedy is nearing a return to riding after taking three months off to work on controlling his weight.

Kennedy has been at Santa Anita for more than a week exercising horses and has targeted Thursday’s start of the Los Alamitos spring meeting for his comeback.

“I think it will be a good time to build up the clientele,” he said.

The first juvenile races of the year in Southern California are scheduled for the three-week Los Alamitos spring meeting, which begins on Thursday.

Three $45,000 maiden special weight races for 2-year-olds are listed in the condition book for the 12-day meeting.

Friday’s program may include a race at 4 1/2 furlongs. The distance is extended to five furlongs for a race for California-breds on April 22. The April 29 program includes a race at 4 1/2 furlongs.

Effinex, who last Monday was crowned New York-bred Horse of the Year, will this Monday be heading to Oaklawn Park for the Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap next Saturday.

The Oaklawn Handicap will be the second start of the year for Effinex, who finished third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 12 in his seasonal debut.

On Thursday, Effinex worked five furlongs in 1:02.47 over the Belmont Park training track. He went his first quarter-mile in 26.00 seconds and his last three furlongs in 36.47.