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.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Jane Cibelli will be departing south Florida shortly for her summer home at Monmouth Park. She picked up a little extra cash to make the trip north over the weekend, parlaying a couple of mid-priced claims into a pair of five-furlong turf victories, including Sunday’s $60,000 Sunset Stakes with the veteran Aquinnah.

STICKNEY, Ill. - Recount ended his 2-year-old campaign winning the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Futurity and started his 3-year-old season Saturday with a sharp victory in the Land of Lincoln Stakes for Illinois-bred 3-year-olds.

Recount ran favored Dom the Bomb into submission, pressing him through a torrid pace, and went on to a comfortable victory. His six-furlong time of 1:10.32 produced an 81 Beyer Speed Figure, which doesn’t quite do the performance justice.

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.