STICKNEY, Ill. - Out of nowhere over the winter came apprentice jockey Vicente Gudiel, who has emerged from obscurity to lead the Hawthorne jockey standings entering this week’s racing.

Gudiel officially has 41 wins at the meet, but that total includes two days of racing in January before Hawthorne went dark during midwinter. The spring meet commenced Feb. 20, and since then Gudiel has gone 37-20-21 from 162 mounts, a 23 percent strike rate and a win total 10 greater than Tim Thornton, second in the standings.

STICKNEY, Ill.  – Two Saturdays ago trainer Bob Baffert ran one-two in the Santa Anita Derby with Dortmund and One Lucky Dane. This past Saturday, Baffert won the Arkansas Derby with American Pharoah while capturing an Oaklawn Park undercard 3-year-old stakes, the Northern Spur, with the maiden Wolf Man Rocket.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Horsemen were relieved to have been notified by management over the weekend that the Aqueduct backstretch will remain open at least through a good portion of July.

Since last November, New York Racing Association officials had talked about closing the Aqueduct backstretch for a 5 1/2-month period from May 1 through Oct. 15 – when racing wasn’t conducted at Aqueduct – as a way of saving approximately $1 million in maintenance costs.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Room for Me, the 3-5 morning-line favorite, will be scratched from Wednesday’s $72,000 third race at Aqueduct because she is ineligible, the New York stewards confirmed Monday.

Room for Me, claimed for $12,500 on Feb. 12 at Santa Anita, won the $50,000 Videogenic Stakes as part of New York’s inaugural Claiming Championships on March 21. She won the race by 13 1/2 lengths and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 105, easily the best number of the six horses in Wednesday’s field.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Things are going so well for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin this month that he was hoping for a slight change to the racing calendar.

“I want to see if they could move the [Kentucky] Derby to the fourth Saturday in April,” he joked Monday morning at Belmont.

McLaughlin will have to hope his April success carries over to May when he runs Frosted in the Kentucky Derby on May 2 at Churchill Downs. But if it does, look out.

Top Billing closed stoutly when beaten a nose by Noble Bird in a second-level allowance here last Wednesday, and he might run back for the same condition or could jump back into stakes company, said trainer Shug McGaughey.

“We’ll wait and see,” said McGaughey.

It was the second start since a one-year layoff for Top Billing, a 4-year-old Curlin colt whose campaign toward the 2014 Kentucky Derby was cut short by injury. He earned a 93 Beyer Speed Figure in this latest effort.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The racing future of Misconnect is in doubt after the ridgling suffered a fractured sesamoid to his left foreleg last month, trainer Bruce Levine said Monday.

Misconnect had won the Grade 3 General George Handicap at Laurel in February and was training for a start in the Grade 1 Carter on April 4 when he suffered the injury during a workout at Belmont Park on March 29.

Misconnect has undergone surgery, but his prognosis for a return to racing is not very good.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Arnaud and Leigh Delacour have made Tampa Bay Downs their winter home since the 2007-08 season, and during that time horseplayers have learned runners from the Delacour operation should never be taken lightly.

On Saturday, the stable was active on two fronts, starting horses at both Tampa and Keeneland.

Arnaud was in Lexington, Ky., to saddle his outstanding 3-year-old Divining Rod in the Grade 3, $250,000 Lexington and the crack turf sprinter Ageless in the $100,000 Giant’s Causeway Stakes.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Imagine two intense rivals battling head and head to the finish. That is the essence of horse racing, and as the Tampa Bay Downs race meeting heads into its final three weeks, a pair of very intense competitors are battling for the top spot in the race for leading trainer.

Gerald Bennett is in the midst of his best-ever Tampa Bay meeting, and coming into last weekend’s action, he had won 36 races, tied with Jamie Ness.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The winners on another eventful stakes weekend at Keeneland emerged in good shape, and all will go their separate ways in the coming weeks.

Ball Dancing, who won the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley on Saturday, and Lady Eli, who breezed to victory Sunday in the Grade 3 Appalachian, will go to trainer Chad Brown’s main base in New York. There is no definite next race for Ball Dancing, but Brown was very pleased with her 2 1/2-length triumph over Filimbi in the Jenny Wiley, a 1 1/16-mile turf race.