2013 Racing Dates

May 12 - September 26

Post Time

5:25 p.m. ET (Sunday - Thursday)

Handicapping Information

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Gary Stevens, who has been aboard two of D. Wayne Lukas’s four Kentucky Derby winners, will be teaming with the Hall of Fame trainer in a major Kentucky Derby prep next month at Oaklawn Park. Lukas on Tuesday said that Stevens has the mount on Oxbow in the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 13.

Point of Entry, who defeated Animal Kingdom in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap to open his 2013 campaign, worked an easy half-mile in 50.40 seconds at Payson Park on Monday. Point of Entry had originally been targeting Saturday’s $5 million Sheema Classic at Meydan after his win in the Turf Handicap but those plans were changed several days after the race. Point of Entry is currently owned in partnership by the Phipps Stable and Frank Stronach.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Ian Wilkes reported that Fort Larned continues to do well and seems to have suffered no ill effects after stumbling badly and unseating jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. moments after the break of the Gulfstream Park Handicap on March 9. Fort Larned worked for the first time since the incident last Thursday, going an easy half-mile in 50 seconds and change at Palm Meadows.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The biggest question being asked before Sunday’s ninth race was, who is Oussama Aboughazale? That unfamiliar name was listed as the trainer of record for Diva Spirit, a well-bred daughter of A.P. Indy who returned from a six-month layoff to upset two other A.P. Indy offspring tutored by a couple of more familiar names, Bill Mott and Kiaran McLaughlin.

When trainer Lloyd Mason’s assistant, Faith Taylor, brought Nina’s Dragon to Mason’s barn at Golden Gate Fields last year after breaking him at her nearby ranch in Clayton, she made a bold prediction.

“When he went to the track, I told Lloyd, ‘Next year, we’ll be in Kentucky,’ and I never say that,” Taylor said.

Nina’s Dragon isn’t in Kentucky yet and isn’t even nominated to the Triple Crown races.

But he is in Louisiana, where he will run in the 100th edition of the $1 million Louisiana Derby on Saturday at Fair Grounds.

Fort Erie Race Track, which had been expected to close its doors this season, has been rescued and will be receiving transitional funding from the Ontario government.

Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne announced early Tuesday afternoon that Fort Erie, as well as Standardbred racetracks Flamboro Downs and Georgian Downs, had signed transitional funding agreements with the province.

Details were not made public, but more information should be forthcoming when the Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium holds a press conference at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Finger Lakes has named Bill Couch as its racing secretary. Couch will oversee the Finger Lakes racing office as well as the racino’s 1,200-stall backstretch area.

The Finger Lakes meet opens on April 20 and runs through Dec. 10.

Couch has been the racing secretary at Thistledown for 12 of the past 14 years. He was the Gulfstream Park racing secretary in 2007-08.

“I’m looking forward to working with our horsemen to showcase Finger Lakes racing in the strongest way possible,” Couch said.

Churchill Downs officials announced Tuesday that simulcasting at its nearby Trackside annex will not be available this year for the Kentucky Oaks and Derby, quite possibly spelling the end for a facility that has been used for that purpose off-and-on since the early 1990s.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After winning three races in as many starts this winter, it appeared that Stopshoppingmaria’s work was done for the Gulfstream Park portion of her campaign. Instead, the red-hot turf-sprint specialist will get one more chance to strut her stuff in southern Florida when she goes postward as the heavy favorite once again in Wednesday’s $70,200 allowance feature, carded at her favorite distance of five furlongs on the grass.