Gervinho, the improving turf horse who overcame a seemingly impossible trip to win the Grade 2 Sir Beaufort Stakes on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, will be on the sidelines the remainder of the winter season.

Trainer Carla Gaines said Wednesday the 4-year-old Gervinho “needs a break.” Though she declined to be specific, Gaines suggested that Gervinho only needed time. She expects him to return in top form the second half of 2014.

“He’s going to have a vacation in preparation for a summer-fall campaign,” Gaines said.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Three juvenile winners in 24 hours last weekend have given trainer Simon Callaghan a core of 3-year-olds to follow in coming months.

Saturday, Callaghan won consecutive maiden races with the colts Cherubim in a six-furlong race on the main track and Ontology on turf. Sunday, the filly Fashion Plate won a six-furlong dirt race in her third start.

They all may run in stakes in their next start.

Del Mar is planning to open its 2014 summer meeting on a Thursday instead the usual Wednesday, track president Joe Harper said earlier this week. The July 17 opening day will distance the race meeting from the San Diego County Fair, held from June 7 to July 6 on the same property,

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Now that the new year has begun and all the 2-year-olds have turned 3, even obscure-looking allowance races will bear watching here over the next couple of months. Two prime examples are the second race Thursday and the featured ninth race Friday.

The featured eighth race on Wednesday, a second-level allowance also open to $40,000 claimers, is carded for about 1 1/8 miles on turf, but expecting turf races to actually be contested on turf has recently been a losing enterprise in New Orleans. Turf racing was conducted on both Dec. 20 and Dec. 21, but grass races were moved to the main track because of wet conditions in five of the six racing days since then.

Central Banker has looked like a useful horse since partway through his 2-year-old campaign in 2012, but he has recently begun to look like something more than that, following up a good closing second to Gantry in the Thanksgiving Handicap at Fair Grounds with an even better second Dec. 26 at Santa Anita in the Grade 1 Malibu for 3-year-olds.