LOUISVILLE, Ky. -  Forget about keeping up with the Joneses. This year, in the handicap division of Thoroughbred racing, it might be all about keeping up with the Dans.

Twelve days after Wise Dan set a Keeneland track record for 1 1/8 miles winning the Ben Ali Stakes, his 6-year-old half-brother Successful Dan set a Churchill Downs track record winning the Grade 2, $337,800 Alysheba Stakes by one length over Fort Larned.

Successful Dan ran 1 1-16 miles in 1:41.04, eclipsing the track record of 1:41.27 set by Brass Hat on July 8, 2007. He returned $10.20 to win.

It won’t be all New York-breds all the time, but it may feel that way through six consecutive restricted races Sunday afternoon, including a pair of New York Stallion Stakes for 3-year-olds at 6 1/2 furlongs.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Unusual Heatwave won the second-richest race for 3-year-olds of 2012 in California in the $300,000 Snow Chief Stakes for California-breds at Betfair Hollywood Park on April 28.

Only the $300,000 San Felipe Stakes in March and the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby in April had early-season purses for the division that were equal to or greater than the Snow Chief Stakes. Those races were won by Creative Cause and I’ll Have Another, entrants in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Stephanie’s Kitten likely punched her overseas ticket to Royal Ascot’s Group 1 Coronation Stakes June 22 with an authoritative, stakes-record-setting victory in $184,800 Edgewood Stakes at Churchill Downs on Friday’s Kentucky Oaks undercard.

The even-money favorite, Stephanie’s Kitten gave her backers a brief moment of anxiety entering the first turn of the 1 1/16-mile Edgewood, bumping in heavy traffic, but once clear of that congestion, was confidently handled and always appeared to have those fillies in front of her well within range of her closing kick.

Just a Fairytale is a 2-year-old Quarter Horse filly who won her debut by a convincing 1 1/4 lengths over 300 yards at Los Alamitos on April 21.

The victory so impressed trainer Paul Jones that he has compared her to Separate Fire, his filly who won the Kindergarten and Ed Burke Memorial futurities in the spring and early summer of 2011.

Sunday evening at Los Alamitos, Just a Fairytale starts in a division of the Kindergarten Futurity trials, an opportunity to further strengthen Jones’s opinion.

FORT ERIE, Ontario – Fort Erie Race Track begins its season Sunday under a cloud of apprehension. This will be the final year of a three-year lease held by the Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium, and once again the track’s future is uncertain.

In addition to the expiring lease, the provincial government closed the ontrack slots casino April 30 and support from it and other government sources is in jeopardy.

A return to business as usual on Sunday at Arlington Park qualifies in this case as a raging success.

Following two days of absurdly short fields, the product of a pre-meet contract dispute between Arlington and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association that led to an informal boycott of the entry box, 99 horses were entered for Sunday’s 10-race card. Purses, cut 20 percent the first two days due to the fight, are back to their expected levels. Maidens run for a very solid $40,000 pot, while third-level allowance horses racing in featured race 6 compete for $44,000.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -   Eight Belles is owned by Jill Baffert. On Friday, the once beaten 3-year-old filly set a stakes record in cruising to an easy 4 3/4-length victory over Good Deed in the Eight Belles Stakes while wearing Mike Pegram’s silks at Churchill Downs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -  On the day before last year’s Kentucky Derby, trainer Todd Pletcher sat at a podium in the Churchill Downs auxiliary press box with his owner, Mike Repole, and somberly announced the scratch of Uncle Mo from the world’s most famous horse race.

On the day before this year’s year Kentucky Derby, Pletcher was in much better spirits as he gets set to run Gemologist and El Padrino in Saturday’s 138^th running of the Derby.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Juanita upset the Grade 2, $327,000 La Troienne Stakes, leaving behind heavily favored Plum Pretty at the top of the Churchill Downs homestretch and going on to a two-length victory over late-running St. John’s River.