NEW ORLEANS – After the classy Louisiana-bred String King became a graded stakes winner with a victory Jan. 17 in the Grade 3 Colonel E. R. Bradley Handicap, trainer-owner-breeder Charles Smith decided the gelding would benefit from a freshening.

After racing three times in 55 days, String King didn’t race five weeks later in the Fair Grounds Handicap, the final prep for the Mervin Muniz Memorial Handicap on March 28. The $300,000, Grade 2 Muniz is the meet’s most significant turf race for older horses, and Smith intends to have String King primed for it.

Due to the impact of a winter storm, racing was canceled Friday at Aqueduct, the 15th full card and second in a row lost to weather and safety concerns.

Aqueduct and Belmont were to be open for simulcasting.

New York Racing Association officials canceled Friday's card in hopes of having a good track for Saturday's 10-race card, which includes the Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham Stakes for 3-year-olds and the Grade 3, $200,000 Tom Fool for sprinters.

Jockey Roman Chapa has appealed the five-year suspension from the Texas Racing Commission for allegedly using an electrical device on a horse, according to an official of the commission.

The appeal was filed on Wednesday afternoon by Chapa’s attorney, according to Robert Elrod, the public information officer of the TRC. Elrod said the commission’s legal counsel is reviewing the appeal.

The calendar has changed to March but the song remains the same. A winter storm forecast to bring 4 to 7 inches of snow to the area forced the New York Racing Association to cancel Thursday’s card at Aqueduct.

It is the 14th full card lost to weather and safety concerns this winter. Seven races of another card were also scrapped.

Racing was expected to resume Friday when there will be a pick six carryover of $148,147 starting with the third race (2:18 p.m. Eastern). The forecast for Friday was for sunshine with a high of 27 degrees.

As for I’m a Chatterbox, trainer Larry Jones said the filly came out of her Rachel Alexandra win even better than the Silverbulletday and will have two workouts before the Fair Grounds Oaks.

For that stakes-rich card, Jones also now has Albano, who won the Maxxam Gold Cup by more than six lengths at Sam Houston last Saturday and will start in the Grade 2 New Orleans Handicap.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The presence of three-time Grade 1 winner Private Zone, Grade 1 winner Wicked Strong, Grade 1-placed Honor Code, and the hard-knocking Valid kept the field for Saturday’s Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap to just six starters. The big four will be joined in the starting gate by the multiple graded stakes winner East Hall and the speedy Loverbil.

:: GULFSTREAM PARK: Get PPs, watch Saturday’s card live

Private Zone is the 122-pound highweight in the one-mile Gulfstream Park Handicap.

Back in early December, jockey Florent Geroux was fresh off the biggest win of his riding career, a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint aboard Work All Week. But if the high-profile victory was supposed to provide an immediate boost to his business at Fair Grounds, Geroux wasn’t feeling it.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The Grade 2 Swale Stakes, postponed a week after heavy rain forced the cancellation of the second half of last Saturday’s program, will lose one of its major players when the field finally does go to post this Saturday.

Although trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. entered Souper Colossal in the Swale, he said Wednesday the chances are “99 percent” that the colt will forgo the Swale for the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby on Saturday.

If history is a fair gauge, Carpe Diem will run well Saturday in the Tampa Bay Derby – but won’t win.

Carpe Diem is co-owned by WinStar Farm and Stonestreet Stable. WinStar president Elliott Walden has had four notable Tampa Bay Derby starters as a trainer or stable representative: Menifee, second in 1999; Bluegrass Cat, second in 2006; Any Given Saturday, second in 2007; and Super Saver, the eventual Kentucky Derby winner, ran third in this race in 2010.

The last few weeks have been good ones for King Leatherbury.

On Monday, he was named a finalist for induction into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Ten days ago, Ben’s Cat rejoined Leatherbury’s Laurel Park stable following a winter vacation.

“He’s galloping nice and soft and easy,” Leatherbury said of the $2.3 million earner, who is now 9. “I absolutely think he has another good year in him. He’s his old self.”

Leatherbury, a few weeks shy of his 82nd birthday and still sharp as a tack, said he is honored to be nominated to the Hall of Fame.