ARCADIA, Calif. – California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year, is scheduled to work before the first race at Santa Anita on Saturday, trainer Art Sherman said on Wednesday.

California Chrome is being prepared for the $200,000 San Pasqual Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on Jan. 9, and Saturday’s workout will be his final major exercise before that race.

A 5-year-old in 2016, California Chrome has not raced since finishing second in the $10 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates last March. The same race on March 26 is a long-term goal.

This has been a breakout year for Jevian Toledo, who clinched his first riding title Thursday on closing day of the Laurel Park meet. Toledo also led the 2015 overall Maryland Jockey Club standings at Pimlico Race Course and Laurel in both victories and purse earnings.

Toledo has 178 wins and $5.2 million in earnings this year, with 141 of his victories coming at the two Maryland tracks. In 2014, he won 63 races on the Maryland Jockey Club circuit.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Greenpointcrusader, idle since finishing seventh as the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, worked five furlongs in 1:02.65 at Palm Meadows on Monday. The work was the second for Greenpointcrusader since he was shipped to south Florida by trainer Dominick Schettino.

The winner of the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont Park, Greenpointcrusader was not among the 21 nominated for Saturday’s Mucho Macho Man, the first of three significant 3-year-old prep races leading up to the $1 million Florida Derby on April 2.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Wednesday’s main event is for 2-year-old fillies going a mile under optional-claiming conditions. The fourth race, it lured a field of 10 led by Smart Shopping, who rallied going seven furlongs over a sloppy track at Churchill Downs on Nov. 28 to win her only start.

Robby Albarado, who guided Smart Shopping to victory for trainer Brendan Walsh, will fly in to ride the daughter of Smart Strike on Wednesday.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. readily admits that 2015 was a bad year as far as he was concerned. He also called it the luckiest year of his life.

Those who know Plesa well understand exactly what he means.

Plesa has won just 37 races in 2015, his lowest yearly total since 1984. He also started fewer horses this season, 267, than he had in each of the past 30 years. Serious health issues kept Plesa from duplicating the kind of success he’s enjoyed on a regular basis since taking out his trainer’s license in the early 1980s.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – A globetrotting star could be coming to Tampa Bay Downs for the $100,000 Turf Dash, a five-furlong turf sprint for 4-year-olds and up Jan. 9. Mongolian Saturday, who won the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at 15-1 on Oct. 31 at Keeneland, was among 29 nominees to the Turf Dash, and if he works well this weekend, he likely will show up, according to his connections.

ARCADIA, Calif. – More than eight weeks have passed since American Pharoah left trainer Bob Baffert’s stable for good, bound for Ashford Stud in Kentucky.

“It is a different life,” Baffert said last weekend. “We’re in the A.P. life – After Pharoah.”

In some ways, everything has changed for Baffert and his team at Santa Anita. Gone are the crowds of well-wishers who watched American Pharoah’s workouts and visited the barn to catch a glimpse of the Triple Crown star.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita began its winter-spring meeting on Saturday with strong attendance and handle figures compared with the corresponding day in 2014.

The opening day saw the first use of the track’s refurbished turf course, which was well received by jockeys despite some concern about how the course will respond to use in the coming months.

Saturday’s announced ontrack crowd of 44,873 was the highest for an opening day since 46,904 attended the 1994 opening. This was the first opening day on a Saturday since 2009, when 35,667 were in attendance.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Blane Servis didn’t accompany his father to Aqueduct on Jan. 3, 2004, when the John Servis-trained Smarty Jones won the Count Fleet Stakes, kicking off a 3-year-old campaign that would include victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness but a kick-in-the-gut one-length defeat in the Belmont Stakes.

Back then, there were other things more appealing for a 16-year-old kid to do than spend a day at the Big A.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The freakishly fast but frequently fragile Mean Season is nearing a return to the races.

Mean Season, a son of Henny Hughes entering his 6-year-old season, blitzed four furlongs in 46.69 seconds Sunday over the training track at Belmont Park, his first local work after five breezes at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.