GRAND ISLAND, Neb. – The Nebraska Racing Commission has given approval for a new management group to conduct racing at Agricultural Park in Columbus this year. A 16-day meet running Aug. 2 to Sept. 2 will be conducted by Columbus Exposition and Racing, pending approval of a contract with the state’s horsemen.

The new management group will be responsible for all expenses of conducting the live race meet as a separate entity from the Platte County Agricultural Society, which had previously run the meet as Columbus Races.

Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M., has created a $300,000 race for 3-year-old fillies as part of a record stakes schedule announced Thursday evening. The track, which operates a casino, opens a 56-date mixed meet for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses on Sept. 7. The stakes offerings for both breeds will top $3.9 million, the richest schedule in the history of Zia. The track opened in 2005.

The Zia Park Oaks will be run at a mile and a sixteenth on Nov. 23. The race was created with the goal of bringing the first graded Thoroughbred race to Zia.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Summer Exclusive won his first stakes in his third career start in Thursday’s $73,600 Harry Henson Stakes, the opening-day feature of the spring-summer meeting at Betfair Hollywood Park.

LEXINGTON – Trainer Graham Motion brought three fillies into the $150,000 Grade 3 Bewitch Stakes on Thursday at Keeneland, and the least heralded of the trio brought the trophy home.

Strathnaver, a recent import from England owned by Andrew Stone who was sent off at 18-to-1, took the 1 1/2-mile turf race by one length after running down the second choice, Regalo Mia, deep in the stretch. It was Strathnaver’s second win in a row, following a victory in a 1 3/16-mile non-winners of one allowance race on the Gulfstream turf on March 16.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Donoharm and Majestic Harbor appear to have a slight edge in a competitive edition of the Grade 3, $200,000 Texas Mile at Lone Star Park on Saturday, based on the company they kept in their most recent starts.

Donoharm hooked eventual Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap winner Cyber Secret in last month’s Grade 3 Razorback, while Majestic Harbor lined up against Graydar and Mark Valeski in the Grade 2 New Orleans Handicap.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Mel’s Game would have had a tougher fight on his hands in the $125,000 Tiznow Stakes if Amazombie entered, or if John Scott entered in peak form.

Since neither happened, Mel’s Game appears a standout while seeking his fourth straight win Saturday in the 7 1/2-furlong Tiznow at Betfair Hollywood Park.

Eight older California-bred runners entered, but not Amazombie. His 2013 debut was postponed by foot trouble. John Scott is in the lineup, but after getting sick and missing three weeks of training he might not be at the top of his game.

INGLEWOOD,  Calif. - Hail Mary, the 3-year-old filly who was second in the Evening Jewel Stakes at Santa Anita on March 30, can be deceptive in morning workouts.

"When she breezes, she looks like she's going in 1:01 or 1:02 and she goes in 58" seconds, said Phil D'Amato, trainer Mike Mitchell's assistant. "She fools you with how easy she does things."

STICKNEY, Ill. – One wouldn’t take the trainer Roger Brueggemann for a kingpin. An old injury causes him to drag a leg, and when Brueggemann is walking, it’s usually away from the spotlight. He keeps his sentences short and his profile low, watching his sets of horses train from an SUV positioned at about the eighth pole in the Hawthorne grandstand parking lot. But for the fourth straight Hawthorne meet, Brueggemann absolutely is killing them, and he looks poised for a powerhouse showing here Saturday, when Hawthorne hosts six $100,000 stakes for Illinois-breds.

Girl of the Rain, a successful turf sprinter in Europe last year, will make her North American debut at a mile in Saturday’s $90,000 Tweedside Stakes at Belmont.

Girl of the Rain, an Irish-bred daughter of Refuse to Bend, won 4 of 7 starts in Italy last year. She was sent to trainer Graham Motion over the winter and had been entered in a stakes at Pimlico last weekend that was rained off the turf.

PHOENIX, Ariz. – Five stakes races celebrate the local product as Turf Paradise presents Arizona-bred Day on Saturday. The $50,000 Gene Fleming Breeders’ Derby is the richest of the events, and pits six 3-year-old Arizona-bred males at 1  1/16 miles on the main track. The Derby goes as race 2 on the nine-race card.