LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Wise Dan has been assigned 128 pounds for the Grade 2 Firecracker Handicap at Churchill Downs, a heavy impost that Churchill racing secretary Ben Huffman evidently believes is commensurate with the gelding’s status as the reigning Horse of the Year in North America.

Charlie LoPresti, who trains Wise Dan for owner Morton Fink, said the assignment was not altogether unexpected, but that he and Fink would have to discuss it before committing the 6-year-old homebred to the Firecracker.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla.- What do Gulfstream Park and the National Hockey League have in common? Both have extended their 2012-2013 seasons into the summer.

The NHL finally decides the Stanley Cup this week while Gulfstream concludes its 2012-2013 championship meet, which began back on Dec. 1, with a special eight-race card on Tuesday. It will be first-ever summer program in the long and storied history of the track and a harbinger of things to come, with Gulfstream currently planning to begin its first summer-spring session on July 1.

Timing seems to matter a lot more than location to the turf filly Absolute Crackers. Returning from a layoff, first in Ireland and then in Kentucky and Florida, Absolute Crackers fired her best shot all three times and won by daylight margins.

The Graham Motion-trained Absolute Crackers will try to repeat that successful pattern when she makes her first start since early March in a $40,000 turf route Monday at Delaware Park.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Mike Pender celebrated the 100th Thoroughbred win of his career on Friday when Boat Trip won an exciting allowance race over five furlongs on turf at Betfair Hollywood Park.

The win left Pender thinking Boat Trip will be a factor in restricted turf stakes at Del Mar this summer. Before then, Pender, 47, would like to collect a more prestigious prize, and add to his total of 12 career stakes wins.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Freakin Rocket, unbeaten after two starts following a victory in an optional claimer for sprinters Thursday, will start on turf in the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes at Del Mar on July 17.

The Oceanside Stakes is run over a mile on turf for 3-year-olds and will be Freakin Rocket’s first start beyond 6 1/2 furlongs.

“We’re thinking of stretching him out,” trainer Tim Yakteen said after Thursday’s race. “He moves like a turf horse and relaxed like a turf horse.”

Kentucky Derby winner Orb, who was sent to the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland the day after the Belmont Stakes, returned to the track Friday, jogging over the facility’s dirt surface.

Trainer Shug McGaughey said Orb was to begin galloping Saturday and would likely return to Belmont in a week or so.

“All reports are good,” McGaughey said. “I planned on bringing him up here, but I spoke to Bruce [Jackson] for a good while and Bruce was so high on how he was doing down there we decided to keep him there.”

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Acclamation, the champion older male of 2011, has been retired from racing and will not resume training after standing his first season at stud this year in California, owner Bud Johnston said Thursday.

In early spring, Johnston said there was a possibility that Acclamation could return to training and race in the second half of the year. Those plans were abandoned after a recent MRI revealed that a strained ligament in a foreleg would not allow Acclamation to resume racing and training.

AUBURN, Wash. – Doris Harwood doesn’t need to be reminded that when one door closes, another opens wide. A week ago, Harwood and her husband, Jeff, made the difficult decision to retire their homebred stable star Noosa Beach after he suffered a setback in training. A week later, Harwood will saddle Noosa Beach’s full brother Music of My Soul to compete Sunday in the $50,000 Coca-Cola Handicap at Emerald Downs.

Isn’t He Clever has rarely made a wrong move in New Mexico. He has compiled a 6-for-8 record in the state, and on Sunday will be returning to it to lead the $75,000 San Juan County Commissioners Handicap at SunRay Park in Farmington.

Isn’t He Clever is the 123-pound highweight for the 1 1/8-mile race. He faces six others, including Gregor and Imco Spirit, the 1-2 finishers in the $35,000 Inaugural at SunRay on April 19, and Vamoose, a multiple stakes winner in New Mexico.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - With slightly more than six months before the closure of Betfair Hollywood Park for demolition, Southern California racing executives have yet to finalize plans for alternative off-track stabling for 2014, the California Horse Racing Board was told on Thursday.

The closure of Hollywood Park will displace more than 1,000 horses whose trainers are based there on a year-round basis.