ARCADIA, Calif. – Amazombie beat the rain and the sun early Friday at Santa Anita, where he worked five furlongs soon after 5  a.m., getting the distance in 59.60 seconds under Alex Bisono.

Trainer Bill Spawr timed Amazombie in 59 seconds, six furlongs galloping out in 1:12.

“He seems stronger than last year,” Spawr said.

The 2011 champion sprinter, Amazombie looked healthy and happy later Friday morning at the Spawr stable and is expected to improve when he makes the second start of his campaign.

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin earned his 1,000th North American career victory on Friday when Que Posse scored a 2 1/4-length victory in a $64,000 allowance feature at Aqueduct.

McLaughlin, a former assistant for trainer D. Wayne Lukas and jockey agent for Chris Antley, began training horses in Dubai in 1993 for the Maktoum family. From 1993-2003, he spent parts of the year in Dubai and part in New York. He was a three-time leading trainer in Dubai, where McLaughlin estimates he won between 300 and 400 races that are not counted in his North American total.

The comeback for 2011 Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty hit a minor snag early this week when she spiked a temperature that precluded an immediate return. Bob Baffert trains the filly, whose sharp work pattern included a seven-furlong work March 8.

“She was working right along and then she got sick on me,” Baffert said. “She spiked a temperature Monday and had it for one day. She is fine now.”

Plum Pretty, with four wins and earnings of $1,356,700 from 10 starts, has not raced since finishing fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic on Nov. 4.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Sunday’s feature at Gulfstream Park is the Grade 3 Honey Fox, but the best race on the card might be the afternoon’s fourth event, a $74,900 optional claiming and allowance test at a 1 1/16 miles on the turf that marks the 2012 debut of the Grade 1 placed Boisterous. The six-horse field also includes Turbo Compressor, Kindergarten Kid and the Group 3 placed Forte Dei Marmi whose only start in North America came last September in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – As the New York Racing Association embarks on a comprehensive investigation into the rash of breakdowns that have occurred at Aqueduct this winter, the head of the association said Friday that purses will be cut for lower-level claiming races beginning April 4.

Since the inner track opened Nov. 30, 17 fatalities have occurred over the surface, eight since Feb. 25. Thirteen of those fatalities have occurred in races where the horses were running for a claiming price of $15,000 or less, essentially the cheapest horses on the grounds.

Trainer Kenneth Roberts, a longtime leading Quarter Horse trainer in Louisiana, has two capable fillies in Sunday’s $221,640 Harrah’s Futurity at Louisiana Downs. The 300-yard race for 2-year-olds will go with a field of 10.

Roberts will be represented by Jetblack Gold Moment, who rallied to win her trial March 3, and Classic Patriot, who in her trial was second to fastest qualifier Wave Cover. The Roberts horses both race for Mercy Hinklins Horse Farm and will be coupled.

Trainers Joel Marr and Henry Dominguez are attacking Sunday’s $110,000 New Mexico State University Handicap at Sunland Park. Between them, the men will have five starters in the field of 10. The mile-and-70-yard race is for 4-year-olds and up bred in New Mexico.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Amie’s Dini, a stakes winner this meet at Oaklawn Park who ran a bold second to On Fire Baby in the recent Honeybee, is to make her next start in the Grade 2, $300,000 Fantasy, trainer Ron Moquett said Friday. The Fantasy, a 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies, will be run at Oaklawn on April 11.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Handicappers will have their work cut out trying to come up with the winner of Sunday’s $150,000 Honey Fox at Gulfstream. Even trying to pick the post-time favorite could be a chore, that’s how evenly matched the field of 11 fillies and mares is on paper for the one-mile Honey Fox.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Gladding should relish the conditions Sunday at Santa Anita, where the class-drop front-runner can be loose on the lead in the Santana Mile.

At one mile on the main track, the $70,000 Santana is an easier spot for Gladding than the race he tried 15 days earlier. That was the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap at 1 1/4 miles, a tough race made impossible by an extreme pace.