ARCADIA, Calif. - On Next Saturday's California Gold Rush day for statebreds, the $300,000 Melair Stakes for 3-year-olds fillies over 1 1/8 miles is expected to be led by Willa B Awesome, the winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks on March 31. The $300,000 Snow Chief Stakes for 3-year-olds over 1 1/8 miles lost its favorite on Thursday when trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said that Rousing Sermon will be pointed for the Kentucky Derby.

Without Rousing Sermon, the leading contender is Derby Gold, the winner of the Echo Eddie Stakes for statebred sprinters on Dec. 31.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Reneesgotzip, second in two Grade 1 stakes for 3-year-olds fillies this spring - the Las Virgenes and Santa Anita Oaks - will not start in the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs on May 4 and will be pointed for the $300,000 Acorn Stakes on May 28 at Belmont Park, trainer Peter Miller said.

Miller said that Reneesgotzip will be kept to races around one turn this year, with the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 2 as a long-term goal. Both the Las Virgenes over a mile and the Santa Anita Oaks over 1 1/16 miles were around two turns.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – On a day that otherwise belonged to jockey Julien Leparoux, who rode a record-tying six winners, Pachattack and jockey Rajiv Maragh won the Grade 3, $100,000 Doubledogdare on Friday at Keeneland.

Trainer Jeremiah Englehart and jockey Wilfredo Rohena combined to win five races on Friday’s opening day nine-race card at Finger Lakes.

Another Englehart runner, Star Dance M D, got beat a half-length in the opener at Aqueduct.

At Finger Lakes, Englehart won the third with Seeking El Dorado ($4.60), the fifth with Malla ($18.80), the sixth with Check the Cites ($4.60), the seventh with Brazen Kat ($5.70) and the ninth with Phantom F Four ($3.10). Three of his winners got claimed as did Star Dance M D.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Julien Leparoux matched a record shared by two other jockeys in riding six winners at Keeneland on Friday. His riding achievement matched the win mark shared by jockeys Randy Romero and Craig Perret, who each won six races apiece on different days during the spring meet at Keeneland in 1990.

Leparoux had a chance to own the record outright if he had won the featured Doubledogdare, but his mount, Kathmanblu, finished second, beaten a neck by favored Pachattack in a stirring stretch duel.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Jim Lawson, who has served as a Woodbine Entertainment Group director since June 2008, has been appointed a vice chairman of the company.

WEG announced Lawson’s appointment following a board of directors meeting here Friday.

Lawson also sits on several committees at Woodbine, including the Thoroughbred racing committee, and is the chief steward of the Jockey Club of Canada.

Active in the racing industry, Lawson is an owner and manages Jim Dandy Stable.

As the leading trainer at Lone Star Park the past two years, trainer Bret Calhoun has made many trips to the track’s winner’s circle. He just wasn’t there Thursday night, although it proved a milestone day, when favored Forty Winks won the third race to give him 2,000 victories in his career.

Calhoun didn’t reach that lofty number by dwelling on the past, or even simply eyeing the present. He, like most successful trainers and people, keeps looking to the future.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The prestige of the San Juan Capistrano Handicap may have slipped, but for fans of Santa Anita, the 1 3/4-mile turf race always brings heartfelt symbolism.

As the traditional closing-day feature, the Grade 2 San Juan is the end of the line. It is time to turn the page. After the final card of the Santa Anita winter meet on Sunday, the circuit packs up and moves to Hollywood Park for a spring meet that begins Thursday.

Those pesky April showers predicted for the weekend moved up workouts for horses seeking May flowers, specifically roses. With inclement weather looming in both Kentucky and Florida, the trainers of Union Rags, Gemologist, and El Padrino both decided to work their horses on Friday as final preparations grew ever closer for the Kentucky Derby on May 5 at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – On Fire Baby had her next-to-last workout for the May 4 Kentucky Oaks when she breezed seven furlongs in 1:26.80 early Friday over the same Churchill Downs racetrack where last fall she swept the Pocahontas and Golden Rod Stakes.

Trainer Gary “Red Dog” Hartlage said he was very pleased with the way On Fire Baby went through her paces, as the gray filly went in splits of 25 seocnds, 49.80, and 1:14.40 before finishing strongly and galloping out a mile in 1:40.20 with regular rider Joe Johnson aboard.