ELMONT, N.Y. – After a few days to celebrate with family and friends at home in Delaware, Jennifer Patterson was back at work Wednesday morning, taking her seat atop Kentucky Derby winner Orb as he began preparations for the May 18 Preakness Stakes with an easy jog at rainy Belmont Park.

With Belmont’s main track sealed and with two sets of orange traffic cones, commonly referred to as “dogs,” keeping horses well beyond the center of the track, Orb jogged a mile alongside a stable pony over a muddy surface that later turned sloppy.

PHOENIX – Flexiplus gamely prevailed in the $35,000 Hasta La Vista Handicap at Turf Paradise Tuesday, closing day of the Phoenix track’s 2012-2013 meet.

Jockey Don Simington made a big comeback over opening weekend at Louisiana Downs, winning six races to lead the first round of standings with Richard Eramia. The mounts were among Simington’s first since breaking his left collarbone last October at Delta Downs.

Simington, 50, underwent surgery to place a plate and nine screws in the collarbone, which he broke for the third time in his career when a horse he was riding fell with him on Oct. 20.

Jim Helzer’s most recognizable role in racing has been as the owner of Grade 1 winners Euroears and Joe Who, as well as the late Refrigerator, who until recent years ranked as the all-time richest Quarter Horse.

But on Thursday night at Lone Star Park, Helzer is returning to his roots. When the 4-year-old filly Alexandrathegreat runs in the second race, she will be Helzer’s first starter as a trainer since 1965.

“I started with a bunch cheap Quarter Horses in Colorado,” Helzer, 73, said of his early years training.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It is perhaps the most compelling storyline of the 138th Preakness Stakes, this inextricable entanglement of Orb, Departing, and their respective connections.

The horses spent their early days together in the same paddock at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky., and after going their separate ways for a time, they will reunite May 18 for a date with racing destiny in the Preakness at Pimlico in Baltimore.

William Hill, the British bookmaking company, has reached an agreement with Monmouth Park in New Jersey to sponsor the track’s Haskell Invitational Stakes and manage a sports-betting operation at the track if legal barriers to sports betting are lifted, Monmouth announced Tuesday.

A release from Monmouth said that the agreement is “long term” but it did not provide details. The $1 million Haskell, a mid-summer target for many top 3-year-olds, is scheduled this year for July 28, and it will be renamed the William Hill Haskell Invitational.

Groupie Doll, the 2012 Eclipse female sprint champion, had her first day at Churchill Downs on Tuesday since getting several months off when jogging two miles with Jada Schlenk aboard.

“We brought her in yesterday after all the Derby hoopla was over,” said Buff Bradley, who trains and co-owns the 5-year-old mare with his father, Fred. “Jada said she felt great.”

Groupie Doll had been at the Bradleys’ Indian Ridge Farm since being sent home in early February from Florida, where she was not training to Bradley’s satisfaction.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The customary parting gift left behind by Kentucky Derby tourists is $303,033, a tidy sum for which everyday horseplayers at Churchill Downs are once again grateful.

Thursday will mark the 10th time in the last 12 years that a major carryover has resulted from the Derby. In preceding years, it was the pick six that eluded Derby bettors, but for the second straight year, it is the last-race super high five offering a potential bonanza.

Post time for the ninth and last race Thursday is 4:59 p.m. Eastern.

Trainer Al Stall Jr. said Bind has been retired after finishing last of nine behind Golden Ticket in a Thursday allowance.

“He’s fine,” Stall said. “It just seems like he doesn’t want to do it anymore, and we’re not going to make him.”

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Broadway Empire won his debut in a six-furlong race for maidens by 16 1/2 lengths and earned a 97 Beyer Speed Figure – at Turf Paradise on a Monday in March.

The Phoenix track is not known for producing fast maiden race winners on weekdays, or on any day for that matter, making Broadway Empire’s performance even more stunning.

More will be known about the gelding’s true ability when he makes his stakes debut in the $70,000 Came Home Stakes for 3-year-olds over seven furlongs at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday.