ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita racing officials were informed Thursday by the American Graded Stakes Committee that the Daytona Stakes run Dec. 29 will retain Grade 3 status, despite being switched from grass to dirt. Turf stakes moved to the main track are automatically downgraded one level, but also subject to re-evaluation.

Apprentice jockey Wilmer Garcia will be out indefinitely due to a hairline fracture in his neck sustained in a car accident on Wednesday, according to his agent Jose Henriquez.

Garcia, based in New York, was driving to Penn National on Wednesday where on Thursday night he was scheduled to ride Wiseman’s Jet, a 12-1 morning-line choice in a $7,500 claiming race for owner/trainer Osvaldo Rojas. Thursday was a dark day at Aqueduct.

Trainer Ralph Arnold Jr., who experienced his best year in racing in 2012, died Dec. 31 of a possible aneurysm, according to friends. He was 62.

Arnold was a native of San Antonio whose first win as a trainer came at Bandera Downs on May 26, 1991. He was perennially among the leading owners and trainers at his home track of Retama Park. Arnold also raced at Sam Houston in Houston and at Lone Star Park near Dallas, where in July he sent out Early M to win the $50,000 Valor Farm in her first start since being claimed for $8,000. She paid $53.60.

Russell Baze, who led the nation’s jockeys with 374 victories in 2012, won the first race of 2013 at Golden Gate aboard Picture Perfect on Tuesday. He wound up with three wins after capturing the sixth race with Cheese Danish and the eighth with Isadaisybelle.

But Baze isn’t the leading rider of 2013 at Golden Gate Fields.

Dennis Carr won four races Tuesday – the third, fourth, fifth, and ninth.

As for Baze, he had the highest winning percentage among the nation’s riders last year, at 33 percent, and he hit the board in 69 percent of his starts.

ARCADIA, Calif. - In late 2011, Lady of Shamrock was bought privately by owner Kosta Hronis and sent to trainer John Sadler. In the final days of 2011 and through 2012, Lady of Shamrock won five stakes for 2- and 3-year-old fillies, including two Grade 1 races – the American Oaks and Del Mar Oaks.

Hronis and Sadler are trying to do the same this year with Sky High Gal.

Purchased privately in the autumn, Sky High Gal won her California debut in Tuesday’s Blue Norther Stakes over a mile on turf. Lady of Shamrock won the same race at the end of 2011.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – On the Aqueduct backside, their barns are separated by about 30 feet of road. In the standings on the New York Racing Association circuit for 2012, trainers David Jacobson and Richard Dutrow Jr. were inseparable.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Gulfstream Park and the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association signed new purse and slots contracts on Monday. The terms of the slots contract will help provide a strong basis for Gulfstream’s planned expansion of its casino, which in turn will result in more money to be earmarked for purses, according to horsemen and track officials.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Defending champion Heavenly Landing tops a field of 10 fillies and mares entered in Saturday’s Grade 3 Marshua’s River Stakes on the turf. Heavenly Landing, who got up in the final stride to win the race a year ago, will share high weight of 121 pounds with Leading Astray.

The remainder of the field comprises Chokurei, Frolic’s Revenge, Affair Dabbler, Channel Lady, Frontside, Filare l’Oro, Hard Not to Like, and Fantasy of Flight.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Purple Egg, who won all three of his starts at 2, lost out on the opportunity to open his 3-year-old campaign here Tuesday in the Gulfstream Park Derby after spiking a fever over the weekend.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The Todd Pletcher-trained Verrazano wasn’t the only 3-year-old to put himself into the Derby picture on opening day. Itsmyluckyday obviously threw his hat in the ring with his one-sided victory in the Gulfstream Park Derby. And Bradester likely punched his ticket to the Grade 3 Holy Bull here later this month with a 1 3/4-length entry-level allowance win going 1 1/16 miles a little earlier on the card.