A pair of old friends spent a day at the races here Thursday. Ray Sibille, the former jockey, was running a horse he trains in the final race. Eddie Delahoussaye, the former jockey and Sibille’s best friend, came along for the afternoon.

The multiple stakes-winning mare La Tia has been retired and will be bred to Candy Ride, according to the Fair Grounds publicity department.

La Tia, who had been training here, most recently was second in the Buena Vista Stakes last month at Santa Anita. Her biggest win came in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar last fall.

She won 10 times in 24 starts and earned more than $1 million.

Trainer Larry Jones has had two top 3-year-old fillies here this meet in I’m a Chatterbox and Lovely Maria, but when it came down to final preps for the May 1 Kentucky Oaks, he decided to try to divide and conquer.

Jones had I’m a Chatterbox set to start as the favorite Saturday in the Fair Grounds Oaks, while Lovely Maria will await next Saturday’s Grade 1 Ashland Stakes at Keeneland. They ran one-two in the local prep, the Rachel Alexandra.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – After an emotional couple of months in south Florida, trainer Jimmy Jerkens and his stable of stakes runners are getting ready to head north for the spring.

Jerkens, whose father, the Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens, died March 18, said Friday that his south Florida-based runners are scheduled to head to New York on Wednesday. Included in that group are Travers winner V. E. Day and Wood Memorial winner Wicked Strong as well as Classic Point and House Rules, both of whom won stakes this winter at Gulfstream Park.

NEW ORLEANS – Fair Grounds heads into its closing-day card Sunday in a far-better position than a year ago, when problems with the turf course were among several issues that raised the ire of horsemen.

The turf course had a new drainage system put in during the offseason, and it has performed sensationally, allowing for racing even during a storm Thursday and looking Friday morning like a course that had been raced on for days, not months.

“We wouldn’t have been able to race on this course on Thursday in the past or even today,” trainer Grant Forster said Friday morning.

The inner-track season comes to an end with a rare non-stakes Saturday card at Aqueduct. Wednesday racing returns to the New York calendar next week when the main track opens.

This was supposed to be a dark week in New York when 2015 race dates were originally allocated. The March 26-28 cards were added to make up for some of the winter cancellations.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Shared Belief, winner of two major stakes for older horses this year at Santa Anita, will make his next start in the $1.5 million Charles Town Classic in West Virginia on April 18.

Alex Solis II, a member of the partnership that owns the 4-year-old gelding, said on Wednesday evening that a decision was finalized on Shared Belief’s next start earlier in the day.

The Charles Town Classic and the $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap in Arkansas on April 11 had been considered as options for Shared Belief's next start by the partnership and trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.

Oaklawn Park will raise purses between $1,000 and $2,000 per race for the final 10 dates of the meet, the track announced Wednesday. The increase will go into effect Saturday. It is the third purse increase of the meet, and it will make for allowances as high as $72,000 in value and maiden special weights worth a record $66,000. The bottom-level purse will be $21,000.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Grade 1-placed 3-year-old The Truth Or Else breezed five furlongs in company in 1:00.40 on Wednesday at Oaklawn. He worked in blinkers with the intent of adding them for the Arkansas Derby, said trainer Ken McPeek. Jockey Calvin Borel was aboard for the move, which came first after the renovation break.

The Truth Or Else was the runner-up in the Grade 3 Southwest at Oaklawn in February, and in his last start, he was fourth to American Pharoah in the local Rebel on March 14.

Trainer Kelly Breen has contenders in both of the undercard dirt stakes for older males on Saturday’s program at Gulfstream Park.

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