La Cara, a two-time Grade 1 winner last year at 3 for Mark Casse, is nearing the first start of her 4-year-old campaign. She worked Sunday at Oaklawn, breezing five-eighths in 1:02.80.

“I am excited to get her going,” Casse said. “She’ll either run in the Houston Ladies Classic at Sam Houston or the Bayakoa. I haven’t decided yet.”

The Grade 3, $300,000 Houston Ladies Classic for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles will be run Jan. 24. It is the richest race at Sam Houston.

Apprentice jockey Jeriel Catala climbed the ladder the old-fashioned way at Parx Racing. Working hard as an exercise rider, the 21-year-old Puerto Rican earned the trust of several local horsemen while struggling to make weight to become an apprentice. He had the reputation before he had the mounts.

“This work is very hard, so it’s important to respect the guys around you,” Catala said.

Paladin, 2 for 2 to start his career and a two-length winner of the Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct last month, will launch his 3-year-old campaign in the $500,000 Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 14, trainer Chad Brown said Monday.

“It’s a ways away, but yes, that’s my Plan A,” Brown said. “I’ve had success there going that route, at least getting to the Derby and running well.”

Sierra Leone, narrowly defeated in the Remsen, won the 2024 Risen Star before landing the Blue Grass at Keeneland and finishing second by a nose in the Kentucky Derby.

The Cherie DeVaux barn won with their two final runners of the most recent Fair Grounds racing week, and on the first card of this week, Thursday, DeVaux sends out the talented Louisiana-bred layoff filly named Prayforthewicked in the co-featured fourth race. But you could forgive DeVaux and her team for looking forward a bit further, since they are likely to be double-barreled in both the Silverbulletday and the Lecomte on the multi-stakes Fair Grounds program of Jan. 17.

Wet weather has caused more cancellations than racing days in the opening weeks of the current Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.

That is about to change.

The forecast in Southern California in the next week is for fine weather, just in time for a four-day week of racing beginning Thursday. A five-day racing week is scheduled from Jan. 15-19. The Thursdays of those weeks are replacement days for recent cancellations.

“We’re looking forward to getting back into some racing,” track general manager Nate Newby said Monday.

Grande and River Thames, two stakes-placed 3-year-olds in 2025 trained by Todd Pletcher, are working their way back toward the races.

Grande, the Grade 2 Wood Memorial runner-up who was scratched from the Kentucky Derby with a foot bruise, has worked five times since Dec. 8, including a half-mile in 50.77 seconds Monday at the Palm Beach Downs training center. Pletcher said Grande had a series of setbacks following the foot bruise that led to him getting the remainder of the year off.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainers Brad Cox and Todd Pletcher had Commandment and Nearly, a couple of newly turned 3-year-olds, put themselves into the Kentucky Derby picture with big performances here last week. In the process, they’ve become potential candidates for the Grade 3 Holy Bull later this month.

Commandment registered an eye-catching, 6 3/4-length victory punctuated by a huge gallop-out in the one-mile Mucho Macho Man on Saturday, while Nearly notched an equally impressive five-length entry-level allowance win the previous afternoon.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The first invitation list for the $3 million Pegasus World Cup was released late last week. The group consists of six local runners and six others currently scattered about the country. The South Florida-based contingent is likely to be well represented in the starting gate if things go according to plan between now and Pegasus World Cup day on Jan. 24.