HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Skippylongstocking could see action next in Kentucky or New York after putting up the year’s highest Beyer Speed Figure for an older dirt horse in last weekend’s Grade 2, $1.25 million Oaklawn Handicap.

Skippylongstocking earned a Beyer of 107. It’s second among all dirt numbers, behind the 110 earned by Fierceness in the Florida Derby. Tape to Tape has the year’s second-highest older dirt horse Beyer, a 106 earned for an allowance sprint win April 21 at Lone Star Park.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Straight No Chaser, winner of the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint at Pimlico last spring with a 107 Beyer Speed Figure, is nominated to the $100,000 Kona Gold Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita, but is likely to ship out of town for his comeback. Straight No Chaser has not started since he won the Maryland Sprint by more than seven lengths.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Tapalo, the Southern California-based stakes-placed 3-year-old, could be traveling this spring. Trainer John Sadler said the New York-bred will be considered for statebred stakes this spring and summer. It was reported earlier that the Mark Glatt-trained California-based Ball Don’t Lie also will look toward the New York-bred stakes program.

ARCADIA, Calif. – It turns out Kopion had an alibi for finishing a distant fourth in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks on April 6. Kopion, winner of the Grade 3 seven-furlong Santa Ynez and runner-up in the Grade 3 Las Virgenes at one mile, lost the Santa Anita Oaks by 16 lengths as the 2.30-1 second choice.

Trainer Richard Mandella said Kopion “came out of the race and appeared perfectly sound, but we scanned her and her shin bones lit up. They were aching a little bit, remodeling, growing-up stuff.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – Super Shine’s runner-up U.S. debut in the Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes on April 21 gives trainer Phil D’Amato a top older dirt female for spring, while D’Amato-trained Desert Dawn will get a break following her third-place finish as the odds-on favorite.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Gregorian Chant, a two-time stakes winner who raced primarily in Southern California from the spring of 2019 until earlier this month, has been retired.

Trainer Phil D’Amato said on Sunday that the 8-year-old Gregorian Chant will be sent to owner Andrew Molasky’s ranch in Las Vegas, Nev., later this month.

“He had zero issues,” D’Amato said. “He showed me in his last race he didn’t want to run anymore. He was good to us.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – Two Rivers Over, the upset winner of the Group 2 Godolphin Mile in Dubai on March 30, worked a half-mile in 49.60 seconds at Santa Anita on Sunday for a potential start in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at a mile during the Belmont Racing Festival at Saratoga.

The $1 million Met Mile is one of the nation’s leading races at the distance on dirt.

Two Rivers Over had his first workout on Sunday for trainer Doug O’Neill since the successful Dubai trip in which he rallied from the middle of a 13-horse field to prevail by three-quarters of a length.

Ideally, both Clovisconnection and Prince Abu Dhabi would represent trainer Blaine Wright’s stable in Saturday’s Grade 3 San Francisco Mile at Golden Gate Fields, the final stakes before the track’s scheduled closure on June 9.

Wright, it appears, is not alone among people seeking to support the $175,000 turf race. The San Francisco Mile will be limited to 12 starters, and is likely to draw an oversubscribed field when entries are compiled on Wednesday.

Fierceness and Sierra Leone, the expected first two choices for the Kentucky Derby, arrived on the Churchill grounds about 16 hours apart.

Fierceness, the 2023 2-year-old champion and dominant Florida Derby winner, arrived about 4 a.m. following a van ride from his winter base at Palm Beach Downs.