Delaware Park has scheduled six handicapping tournaments this year. They will be Feb. 7, March 7, April 4, June 13, Sept. 12, and Nov. 21.

The entry fee for each contest will be $100, and players must put up another $100 as a bankroll.

Contest officials will select five or six designated tournament tracks. Players must make at least 10 win, place, or show wagers on those tracks but can make as many wagers as they want. Wagers must be a minimum of $10 but can be as high as a player wishes. If a player’s bankroll taps out, he is eliminated.

When Maryland’s leading rider, Trevor McCarthy, broke his wrist Dec. 20 at Laurel Park, it opened up the playing field for everyone else.

Not all that surprisingly, Victor Carrasco, who finished second to McCarthy at all three Maryland meets in 2014, has been the main beneficiary. Sheldon Russell also has done well.

Carrasco, the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice of 2013, has gone 10 for 42 (24 percent) on the six cards that Laurel has had since McCarthy was injured. Carrasco won four races on New Year’s Day.

Trainer Dale Romans dominated Monday’s work tab at Gulfstream, sending out 21 horses to breeze, many of whom figure to be prominent in 3-year-old stakes later this winter.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fl a. – Trainer Todd Pletcher has nominated six horses to Saturday’s Grade 3 Hal’s Hope but will start only one, Golden Lad, who’ll launch his comeback in the one-mile fixture after having been away since his eighth-place finish last May in the Grade 3 Pimlico Special.

Belle Gallantey, the dual Grade 1 winner who ran fifth in her 6-year-old debut, may get another chance to run again, part-owner Michael Dubb said Monday.

Kid Cruz, one of the graded stakes-winning 3-year-olds who trained in New York last winter, returned to the work tab Saturday, breezing an easy half-mile in 52.20 seconds over the Belmont Park training track.

It was his first work since he had a bone chip removed from his left foreleg following a fourth-place finish in the Travers last August.

“He looks great. He’s really matured, strong, powerful, fresh,” trainer Linda Rice said. “He wanted to do a lot more [Saturday].”

Majestic Affair, who galloped to a 5 3/4-length victory in last Friday’s Fred “Cappy” Capossela Stakes, likely will remain sprinting for the near future, trainer Chad Brown said Monday.

“I don’t have any immediate plans to stretch the horse out,” Brown said by phone from south Florida. “I’m not sure where his next start will be. Obviously, we’re thrilled with his performance. We think he has a chance to be a factor in the division on dirt going one turn.”

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Anthony Granitz won his 1,000th career race as a trainer Sunday at Tampa Bay Downs when Antonio Gallardo guided Wedding Savior to victory in a route at a mile and 40 yards for $8,000 claimers.

Granitz, who has been training for 30 years, is a Chicago native who also has a residence in nearby Safety Harbor, Fla. He has developed such good ones as Grade 3 winner False Promises and stakes winners Darley Dancer and Coni Bug.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Despite the season’s coldest temperatures and even the threat of snow this week, the connections of El Kabeir appear intent on traveling the New York route to the Kentucky Derby.

El Kabeir emerged from his 4 3/4-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 3 Jerome Stakes in good order, according to trainer John Terranova, and if all remains well, the 3-year-old son of Scat Daddy could make his next start Feb. 7 in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Tim Padilla has spent winters at places like Oaklawn Park and Hawthorne Race Course, where a trainer is often forced to walk and shed-row his stock when winter storms and frigid weather keep tracks closed for training.

So, when Padilla, a native of Phoenix with 23 years of experience as a trainer, shipped into Oldsmar, it took only a few days of blue skies and balmy temperatures to convince him that his decision to race at Tampa Bay Downs this winter was a wise one, at least from a climate standpoint.