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.

Services for trainer William J. Morey Jr. will be held on Friday at 11 a.m. Pacific in the Pacific Chapel at Skyline Memorial Park in San Mateo, Calif. (Hwy. 92 at Skyline Blvd.).

Morey, 74, died April 10 after a long battle with cancer. A member of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association Hall of Fame, he trained millionaire graded stakes winners Dixie Dot Com and Bold Chieftain.

Finnegans Wake, who won three consecutive turf stakes from late November to early February but was second in the Grade 2 San Luis Rey Stakes on March 21, is bound for Kentucky.

Trainer Peter Miller said on Sunday that Finnegans Wake will run in the $500,000 Woodford Reserve Turf at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Churchill Downs on May 2, the Kentucky Derby program.

Msochistic may leave Santa Anita in late June as a Grade 1 stakes winner.

Saturday, the exciting sprinter won his first stakes in the Grade 2 Kona Gold Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs in his first start for trainer Ron Ellis. Sunday, Ellis said the $300,000 Triple Bend Stakes, a Grade 1 at seven furlongs on June 27, is a long-term goal.

The Triple Bend is the final sprint race of the spring-summer meeting at Santa Anita before racing shifts to Los Alamitos and Del Mar for the rest of the summer.

Speaking Sunday at Keeneland, trainer Graham Motion said the champion Main Sequence is doing “really good” at his Fair Hill Training Center base in Maryland following his trip to Dubai, where he finished seventh in the Group 1 Sheema Classic on March 28.

“I’m so pleased with how he came back from Dubai,” Motion said.

Immediately upon his return from Dubai, Main Sequence was quarantined in Chicago before continuing on to Maryland.

Motion mentioned the Grade 1 United Nations Stakes on July 5 at Monmouth Park as the potential comeback target for the gelding. 

ARCADIA, Calif. – Cozmic One, the first foal out of the 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta, will make his career debut in a maiden race for 3-year-olds at a mile Friday at Santa Anita.

Cozmic One drew the rail in a field of seven. The colt, by Bernardini, has the same owner and trainer as the immensely popular Zenyatta – owners Jerry and Ann Moss and trainer John Shirreffs.

Trainer Todd Pletcher sent out Race Day to win the Grade 2, $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap on Saturday and said the horse would be traveling to Keeneland on Monday. Race Day earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 110 for his 3 3/4-length win, which came one start after he captured the Grade 3, $250,000 Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn.

“We’re really happy with his progress this year,” Pletcher said.

Race Day’s next start is to be determined after discussions with owner Matthew Schera,   said Pletcher. One race on their radar, the trainer said, is the Met Mile at Belmont Park.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - American Pharoah will fly to Churchill Downs on Monday to begin final preparations for the Kentucky Derby, his trainer, Bob Baffert, said on Sunday, the day after the champion’s eight-length win in the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby.

“He’ll have a real easy week,” said Baffert.

Going forward, Baffert said American Pharoah will probably have one work in advance of the Kentucky Derby on May 2.