Determining the favorite and picking the winner of the $50,000 Czaria at Sunland Park on Saturday appear to be equally difficult tasks.
The six-furlong race for fillies and mares drew an evenly-matched field of nine, including Bab At The Bowster, who is making her first start since the Del Mar meet in August, and Pyrite on My Mind, an allowance winner at the meet out to rebound from a fifth-place finish in the $100,000 Harry Henson in her last start March 25.

Trainer Steve Manley won the 1,000th race of his career Wednesday, when No Bull Jess took the ninth race at Hawthorne.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Trainer Todd Pletcher comes to the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct with an undefeated horse who ended his 2-year-old season with a graded stakes win at Churchill Downs and began his 3-year-old campaign with a visually impressive victory in a one-turn mile race at Gulfstream Park.

That’s where Pletcher hopes the similarities between Gemologist and Uncle Mo end.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – With all due respect to the $1 million Wood Memorial, the best race on Saturday’s 11-race program at Aqueduct is the Grade 1, $400,000 Carter Handicap for older sprinters.

Grade 1 winners Caleb’s Posse, Jackson Bend, and Shackleford converge in this seven-furlong sprint that drew a field of six and will be run one race after the Wood. Multiple stakes winner Calibrachoa was scratched fromthe Carter Saturday morning with a quarter crack.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Someday.

That’s when trainer Ingrid Mason might try Apprehender over a route of ground again. But right now, she feels the horse’s best game is sprinting and on Saturday at Oaklawn Park he will be going after his third win at the meet in the $75,000 Bachelor.

The Bachelor is for 3-year-olds at six furlongs. The field of six includes Lake Victor, who missed by a nose last out in the $60,000 Gazebo at Oaklawn, and Laurie’s Rocket, who is cutting back to one turn after racing in two of the local preps for the Arkansas Derby.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The connections of Trinniberg appeared to have cured themselves of any case of Derby fever before it became fatal.

With Trinniberg coming off a six-length victory in the Grade 3 Swale Stakes at Gulfstream four weeks ago, it would not have been surprising had owner Shivananda Parbhoo and his father, the trainer Bisnath Parboo, opted to stretch their 3-year-old out in distance in a race like the Wood Memorial or Illinois Derby to see if they had a Kentucky Derby horse.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – It’s Me Mom, one of the fastest female sprinters in the country, will take on the boys as she attempts to get back on the winning track in the Florida Cup Sprint, while Slews Answer goes after his second straight win in the Florida Cup Turf Classic on Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs. The Florida Cup card is comprised of six $75,000 stakes for Florida-breds.

This will be the 10th Florida Cup Day, which is presented by Tampa Bay Downs and the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Go Forth North has spent more time on the sidelines in the last 18 months than she has with trainer A.C. Avila.

A 5-year-old mare who has won two stakes in a 15-race career, Go Forth North made just three starts last year, a season highlighted by third-place finishes in two Grade 2 races – the Robert Frankel Stakes in January, and the Palomar Handicap at Del Mar last September.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Yawanna Twist, winner of the Grade 2 General George Handicap at Laurel Park on Feb. 20, has been transferred by owner James Riccio Sr. from Richard Dutrow Jr. to trainer John Parisella in order to be allowed to run in next weekend’s Grade 2 Oaklawn Park Handicap.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Creative Cause will be wearing No. 1 when he enters the gate for the Grade 1, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on Saturday, an appropriate designation for the colt who has been the West Coast’s top-ranked Kentucky Derby prospect for months.

It is a position Creative Cause claimed when he romped in the Norfolk Stakes here last fall, just before his third-place finish behind Hansen and Union Rags in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.