The Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie Stakes on Saturday at Laurel Park will match last year’s winner, the 6-year-old Lady Sabelia, against the rapidly improving 4-year-old Hot City Girl. A field of seven was entered Monday for the $300,000 Fritchie, a seven-furlong race for fillies and mares.

Saturday is the first day of Laurel’s winter carnival, which concludes on Presidents Day Monday with the Grade 3, $250,000 General George, a seven-furlong race for 4-year-olds and up. There are a pair of $75,000 supporting stakes on each program.

Trainer Mark Casse on Sunday confirmed that Airoforce, an Eclipse Award finalist for champion 2-year-old male of 2015, will ship from south Florida to New Orleans next week to make his 3-year-old debut Feb. 20 in the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star Stakes.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas has put a health scare far behind him and is back in a familiar spot at this Oaklawn Park meet – with a promising 3-year-old prospect in Z Royal.

Z Royal breezed Monday for an intended start in the Grade 3, $500,000 Southwest Stakes. Lukas said Gary Stevens will ride the Zayat Stables-owned horse in the race next Monday.

Lukas, 80, has fully recovered from a heart scare last September. He had been briefly hospitalized in Philadelphia, where was set to run horses in stakes at Parx Racing on a Saturday.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado is winless with 18 mounts at the Gulfstream Park meet but will look to score with his first mount of the Tampa Bay Downs meet on Wednesday.

Prado will ride War Order, a War Front colt owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Thani and trained by Graham Motion, in the eighth race, a $23,000 maiden special weight race going one mile and 40 yards. The race drew a field of nine 3-year-olds, and War Order is the 2-1 morning-line favorite.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Fast Flying Rumor is targeting the $100,000 Pelican Stakes on Feb. 20 at Tampa Bay Downs after dominating an optional $50,000 claimer on the main track here last Friday for his third consecutive win. The Pelican is a six-furlong sprint for 4-year-olds and up on the main track.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After defeating fellow New York-breds in Saturday’s Gander Stakes at Aqueduct, the 3-year-old Governor Malibu will step into open company for his next start, trainer Christophe Clement said Monday.

Where and when that will occur will be determined at a later date.

“I really don’t know yet,” Clement said Monday from Payson Park in Florida, where Governor Malibu was due to ship Wednesday. “I know all the races, ambitious to less ambitious. We’ll shop around.”

Defending race winner Marino’s Wild Cat, who hasn’t started since a third-place finish last April that snapped a three-race win streak, is expected to make his return in next Monday’s $50,000 Lost in the Fog at six furlongs at Golden Gate Fields. He has had 13 works since the end of last October, winding up with a six-furlong move in 1:10.80 on Feb. 3.

“He should be ready,” trainer Cliff DeLima said of his multiple stakes winner.

Trainer Blaine Wright plans to enter Holdthismiss, just claimed for $62,500 on Jan. 1, and Mah Gellin.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – The second-biggest day of the Tampa Bay Downs meet comes Saturday, when Festival Preview Day offers four stakes worth $650,000 in total, including a trio of Grade 3 stakes. The event serves as a prelude to Festival Day on March 12, when four stakes worth $850,000 in total will be run.

The Grade 3, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes is for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles and is a prep for the biggest race of the meet, the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby, which offers qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby to its top four finishers.

Trainer Manny Badilla was philosophical about Code Warrior’s fourth-place finish in her route debut in last Saturday’s California Oaks. The favored 3-year-old filly lost for the first time at Golden Gate Fields.

“I knew when we drew the rail it was trouble in River City,” he said. “It was very educational for her to get pinned down on the rail.”

Although she seemed capable of taking the lead based on her sprint fractions, jockey Anne Sanguinetti kept her off the pace.

In 2008, a Cinderella story unfolded for owner Johnny Taboada in the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby when Autism Awareness, the longest shot on the board, scored the biggest upset ($126) in the race’s history.

Autism Awareness, a $1,000 purchase at the Northern California yearling sale in Pleasanton, was not a one-hit wonder. The next year, he won a four-way photo in the Grade 3 Berkeley, beating millionaires Bold Chieftain and Awesome Gem. He earned $356,732 in his career.