ARCADIA, Calif. – A perfect record on turf at Santa Anita this winter will make Lady of Shamrock a deserving favorite in Saturday’s $150,000 Providencia Stakes.

This time, she must beat the toughest field she has faced, one that includes a core of accomplished turf runners and a few notable stakes winners on main tracks.

Trained by John Sadler for Hronis Racing, Lady of Shamrock won the Blue Norther Stakes on Dec. 30, finished third in the Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes on the main track on Jan. 28, and rebounded to win the China Doll Stakes on turf on March 10.

ARCADIA, Calif. – All week long, people asked owner-trainer Bill Spawr the same question about the Grade 2 Potrero Grande on Saturday at Santa Anita.

“Is Amazombie running?”

All week, Spawr waited for the draw and complexion of the field before he answered the question.

“Is Amazombie running?”

Finally, the answer is a tentative yes. “I like the way the race came up, it kind of sets up for him,” Spawr said.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – When it comes to running his horses, trainer Marty Wolfson can be a patient man. A case in point is the filly Entrustment.

Entrustment was purchased privately by Farnsworth Stables following her sixth-place finish last fall in the Grade 3 Harold Ramser Stakes a Santa Anita, and Wolfson has had her in his barn since November. Wolfson entered her three times since Feb. 18 but scratched her on each occasion, including the Grade 3 Honey Fox on March 18.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Even in this advanced era of wagering, there are no prop bets regarding leading trainer at a given meet. If there were, then there would be little doubt that the combination of Ken McPeek and Wayne Catalano would be among the favored exactas at the 2012 Keeneland spring meet.

Both trainers have returned after decent Gulfstream Park meets with plenty of horses to run through the end of the meet on April 27. During the opening two-day weekend (Friday and Saturday), McPeek had the most scheduled starters with 10, while Catalano was next with 9.

Win or lose, Kobe, the 3-year-old stakes-winning Quarter Horse, will be rested until the fall after Saturday’s $184,000 El Primero Del Ano Derby at Los Alamitos.

Kobe will be favored to go on vacation as a winner.

Trained by Paul Jones for breeders Mark and Mary Parsons, Kobe won the Los Alamitos Winter Derby on Feb. 18 and was a troubled third in a division of the El Primero Del Ano Derby trials on March 18.

“He got on the outside and drifted out a bit,” Jones said of the trial. “It took a while for him to get into the race. Luckily, we qualified.”

Mid-Atlantic-based trainer Mike Trombetta came to Hawthorne Race Course in 2006 with a relatively unproven 3-year-old named Sweetnorthernsaint. The questions being asked of Hakama, Trombetta’s entrant in Saturday’s Illinois Derby, are the same as were asked of Sweetnorthernsaint: Can he get the distance? Is he good enough?

“I remember having these same conversations about six years ago,” Trombetta said.

The Nutz, prepping for the Bosselman/Gus Fonner Stakes later this month, heads a good field of eight older horses in the $20,000 Dowd Mile Stakes at Fonner Park on Saturday.

The Nutz made his seasonal debut with a hard-charging neck win in the Budweiser-Tondi Stakes on March 10 as he rallied from last to run down Song of Humor in the closing jumps. He won the Dowd Mile in 2009 along with the 2008 edition of the Bosselman/Gus Fonner for trainer Steve Hall and has compiled a career mark of 9-5-4 from 23 starts for earnings of $162,875. Nestor Maldonado will again have the mount.

Those dice being rolled Saturday in the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby are in the hands of Paul Reddam, the owner of I’ll Have Another, who must come up with a big effort if he is going to make it into the field for the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby on May 5 at Churchill Downs.

Motega will have her work cut out for her Saturday when she faces nine other Ohio-bred 3-year-old fillies in the $50,000 Royal North at Beulah Park.

Trained by Joe Martin, Motega was the Ohio 2-year-old filly champion last year, winning her first four races by a combined 32 1/2 lengths. After winning her maiden event June 24 at Mountaineer, she reeled off three Ohio-bred stakes victories, including beating the boys at River Downs in the Hoover by 17 lengths.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Optimism runs rampant in early April, when every fan’s baseball team is a contender and anyone with a precocious 3-year-old is convinced their horse will like more distance.

Saturday’s one-mile Comely looms a telling barometer for the connections of several highly promising fillies as they seek to learn what sort of races to focus on down the road. The Grade 3, $250,000 Comely is race 7 and begins an all graded stakes pick four with a $500,000 guarantee at 4:04 p.m. Eastern.