HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Wesley Ward has been relatively quiet since winning two Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita and then serving a 30-day medication suspension. Ward is getting his large stable geared up for the Gulfstream winter meet while also finding time each afternoon to help break 50 yearlings at a nearby farm.

CYPRESS, Calif. – The 3-year-old gelding Johns Journey faces a lengthy recuperation after unseating jockey Fernando Perez and striking the inside rail in an optional claimer at Los Alamitos on Saturday.

Trainer Mike Machowsky said Johns Journey needed many stitches on a stifle that evening, a procedure that took 2 1/2 hours. Machowsky said X-rays showed no further injuries.

“He’ll be pretty sore for a while,” Machowsky said. “When he hit that rail, he was lucky, I think. We’ll need to leave him in the stall, and we can’t walk him. It will take time.”

CYPRESS, Calif. – Acceptance, unbeaten in three starts after winning Sunday’s King Glorious Stakes, is likely to remain in the California-bred division for his first start of 2015.

Co-owner Bud Johnston said after the King Glorious that Acceptance will be pointed for the $250,000 California Cup Derby over 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita on Jan. 24.

CYPRESS, Calif. – Owner John Oxley paid a $20,000 supplemental entry fee to give Pioneerof the West a spot in the gate for Saturday’s $500,000 Los Alamitos Futurity. While the fee represents a gamble for Oxley and trainer Mark Casse, the race will provide an indication of where the colt stands in the division.

Pioneerof the West beat maidens over a mile in his last start, the fourth of his career, at Del Mar on Nov. 20. Casse saw enough from the performance and subsequent workouts to run Pioneerof the West in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity, run over 1 1/16 miles.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Good Luck Gus, the winner of Sunday’s Damon Runyon Stakes for New York-breds, will get a chance to prove himself against open company next year.

It’s just a matter of whether he will wheel back in the Jerome on Jan. 3 or wait until the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes here Feb. 7.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin will send recent maiden winners Ocean Knight and Perchance to south Florida this week but will keep Classy Class in New York and point him to the Jerome on Jan. 3.

Classy Class, a debut winner at Belmont on Oct. 25, finished fourth in the Grade 2 Remsen.

“We don’t think any less of him,” McLaughlin said from south Florida. “We’ll leave him up there to represent us.”

McLaughlin said he would see how Classy Class runs in the Jerome before deciding whether to keep him in New York or ship him to south Florida.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – El Kabeir, the winner of the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs on Nov. 29, will make his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3, $200,000 Jerome Stakes over Aqueduct’s inner track, his connections said Monday.

The Jerome, run at a mile and 70 yards on Jan. 3, is the first of four races for 3-year-olds here that offer qualifying points to the May 2 Kentucky Derby.

“Timing-wise, it makes sense,” said Tonja Terranova, the wife and assistant of trainer John Terranova. “Keeping him here, he’s doing really well here.”

The New York Racing Association will try to entice horsemen who winter in south Florida to return to New York in early April by raising purses for overnight races and adding a handful of new turf stakes to the Aqueduct spring schedule.

The 19-day meet, which runs April 1-26, will have maiden special weight purses increase by $10,000 to $70,000, while first-, second-, and third-level allowance races will go up by $5,000 apiece and be worth $72,000, $74,000, and $78,000.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – On Saturday, Todd Pletcher won four races, including a pair of stakes here and the Queens County at Aqueduct. But he isn’t the only trainer who had himself a big weekend both here and in New York.

So did his good friend and colleague, Kiaran McLaughlin, who was all smiles following Munjaz’s impressive victory in his U.S. debut here Sunday, giving the trainer his fourth win of the weekend.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – When Crusader Kris ($94.20) outgamed 27-1 Musical Journey to take the nightcap Saturday and top a list of exotic-wager payoffs that included a $1,519.60 exacta, a $42,994.10 superfecta, and a $26,194.20 pick four, it was a fitting final act to a bizarre afternoon of racing that featured plenty of prizes and surprises.

While there actually were three races in which the betting favorites won, there also were races full of stunning upsets, like the fourth race.