CYPRESS, Calif. – Preparations for the 2015 season began in earnest for California Chrome on Thursday, when the star 3-year-old worked a half-mile in 48.20 seconds at Los Alamitos for the upcoming Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.

Trainer Art Sherman has targeted the $500,000 San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 7 as the first start of the year for California Chrome, a leading candidate for the 2014 Horse of the Year title. California Chrome ended his 2014 season with an emphatic win in the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on turf at Del Mar on Nov. 30.

The major players all were entered in the expected spots Wednesday, when the Louisiana Champions Day card was drawn for Saturday.

Sunbean will be favored to nail down another Champions Day Classic, while String King seeks his third win in the Champions Day Turf and Heitai his second straight victory in the Champions Day Sprint.

The Classic drew just five entrants and was placed early on the card due to the short field, going as race 4. First post Saturday is early, too, with the first of 12 races going at noon Central. The program starts with three Quarter Horse stakes.

Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., will waive its $2 general admission fee for the upcoming meet, which opens Jan. 9, according to a release.

Oaklawn president Charles Cella made the move to mark the completion of an 18-month expansion of the track’s gaming center, and in appreciation of fans of the 110-year-old track.

W V Jetsetter, who earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 89 for his win in a division of the Texas Stallion Stakes last month at Retama Park, likely will make his next start at Gulfstream Park. Trainer George Weaver said the Florida-based horse might run in the $100,000 Mucho Macho Man at a mile Jan. 3.

“I imagine we’ll try something locally,” said Weaver, adding that plans are to keep track of upcoming Texas-bred stakes for the horse. “We’ll keep an eye on Sam Houston.”

W V Jetsetter this summer ran third in the Grade 2 Saratoga Special at Saratoga.

Shotgun Kowboy is shooting for his third straight stakes win Sunday in the $250,000 Springboard Mile at Remington Park. He might never have been produced were it not for the long-term care that breeder, owner, and trainer C.R. Trout took of the horse’s dam, Shotgun Jane.

Shotgun Jane, a half-sister to the millionaire Maysville Slew, sustained a devastating injury as a young horse. She was unable to race and unable to carry a foal for a number of years. Now, she is responsible for Shotgun Kowboy, one of the most exciting young horses Trout has ever had.

Trainer Steve Asmussen has set up shop at Fair Grounds for the winter, started winning races in the past week, and now has his big guns on the way.

The two star Winchell Thoroughbreds homebreds, Untapable and Tapiture, were to ship from the Winchells’ Corinthia Farm in Kentucky to Fair Grounds on Friday, Asmussen said. On Monday, both horses will begin training for their 2015 campaigns.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The old saying about necessity being the mother of invention certainly applies to trainer Sal Santoro’s decision to run his 4-year-old filly Rose to Gold against the boys in Saturday’s Harlan’s Holiday Stakes.

A multiple stakes winner, Rose to Gold has not started since she checked home fifth in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom last April at Oaklawn Park. A third-place finish or better in the Harlan’s Holiday would make Rose to Gold a millionaire. Rose to Gold, a homebred daughter of Friends Lake, enters the race with career earnings of $981,509.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Little Alexis’s scheduled trip to Santa Anita to compete in the Grade 1 La Brea on Dec. 26 has been canceled, owner-trainer Carlo Vaccarezza said Wednesday.

Little Alexis suffered an allergic reaction on her neck and spiked a fever of nearly 105 degrees immediately after her ninth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, and last week she missed several days of training with a fever.

Conquest Eclipse, seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita on Nov. 1, will miss Saturday’s $350,000 Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos and will resume her career away from California, trainer Mark Casse said Wednesday.

Casse said Conquest Eclipse will be sent to Florida this month and might race at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas in the coming months. He said he was not pleased with the way Conquest Eclipse emerged from a recent workout but said the filly is not injured.

Trainer Charlton Baker claimed Expression on his own behalf for $35,000 out of a win in a maiden race at Aqueduct in January 2012. In the almost three years since, Expression has been a steady horse, winning a nonwinners-of-two starter, two claiming races, and knocking out her first- and second-level allowance conditions.