Battle Force will make his career debut on a dirt track in Saturday’s $150,000 San Fernando Stakes for 4-year-olds, a race worth trying at this stage of the colt’s career, trainer John Shirreffs said on Wednesday.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The television images stayed in Orlando Mojica’s mind.

Mojica was in the Midwest last year, riding in Indiana and Kentucky, when he began closely following racing in Southern California.

“You see the mountains, the Breeders’ Cup, the good trainers, and the good horses,” he said. “I said, ‘I want to ride in California.’ ”

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Endorsement’s natural speed might give him an edge over horse-for-course Win Willy when the pair meets Friday in the $75,000 Fifth Season at Oaklawn Park. The 1 1/16-mile race opens the popular meet known as Arkansas’s “fifth season” behind winter, spring, summer, and fall. It also is the first step on the road to the Grade 2, $500,000 Oaklawn Handicap.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - A field of 11 turf specialists led by Nikki’s Sandcastle, already a two-time winner at the meet, was entered for Saturday’s Grade 2 Ft. Lauderdale.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Hard Not to Like was back under tack at trainer Michael Matz’s barn Tuesday morning at Palm Meadows, just three days after returning from an eight-month layoff and overcoming a slow start to capture the Grade 3 Marshua’s River here Saturday. Hard Not to Like, a 4-year-old Hard Spun filly, was making her first start for Matz after beginning her career with trainer Gail Cox. She was ridden by Joe Rocco Jr.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Fort Larned, an Eclipse Award finalist in two categories including for Horse of the Year, will launch his 2013 campaign in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap on March 9, trainer Ian Wilkes reported on Tuesday.

Fort Larned capped off his campaign with a game half-length decision over Mucho Macho Man in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. He also won the Grade 1 Whitney earlier that summer at Saratoga. Fort Larned won his only local start here last season when he rallied from just off the pace to upset the Grade 3 Skip Away.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Oaklawn Park has budgeted a record $20 million in purses for its 56-date meet that opens Friday. That’s up from about $18 million a year ago, and the riches have lured more than a dozen new trainers to the mountain top resort town of Hot Springs. There also are more than a dozen new jockeys settled in at Oaklawn.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer George Weaver has only eight horses in New York for the winter, but two of them are in with a chance to succeed at Aqueduct on Friday.

In the second, a $67,000 first-level optional claimer, Weaver will bring Citizen Wells back to the races off a layoff of nearly six months against just four rivals.

In the seventh, a $52,000 first-level optional claimer restricted to New York-bred 3-year-old fillies, Weaver will send out True Fortune.

The breeding of the Quarter Horse filly Tres of Linda was a match made on the Internet.

Owners Christian and Ru Anna Singletary became acquainted with Oklahoma breeder Joleen Hales through a Quarter Horse racing website. The three of them met in person at horse sales and spent time together at the races in Ruidoso, N.M.

During one of those meetings, the Singletarys and Haleses decided to breed the Singletarys’s mare Lindas Dasher to Tres Seis, a stallion to which the Haleses owned a breeding season.

ARCADIA, Calif. –There may be no stopping Motown Men, the stakes-placed gelding who makes his second start on turf in an optional claimer at Santa Anita on Friday.

Motown Men, 4, has proven to be very fast, often too much for his own good. Frequently, Motown Men has led and been caught late.

In two starts since returning from a 10-month layoff in October, Motown Men was second by a head in an optional claimer for California-breds here Oct. 18 and was last of seven in the Zia Park Derby on Dec. 1 after leading for the first half-mile.