HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gemologist hadn’t raced in nearly four months, but it was hard to tell he had been away at all from the looks of his performance in his 3-year-old debut here Wednesday.

Gemologist kept his record unblemished with a convincing and very easy seven-length triumph over the previously undefeated Grade 1 winner Currency Swap going a mile under allowance conditions under jockey Javier Castellano in Wednesday’s third race. The one-sided victory thrust Gemologist, a son of Tiznow owned by WinStar Farm, right into the midst of the Kentucky Derby picture.

Racing officials at Turfway Park are expecting a sizable field for their annual showcase event, the Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes, with a handful of prominent trainers likely to run a pair of 3-year-olds apiece.

Todd Pletcher, Graham Motion, Mike Maker, and Mark Casse all have two horses under consideration for the Grade 3, $500,000 Spiral, which will be run next Saturday, March 24, at the Florence, Ky., track.

Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., experimented with its Super Derby date last season by moving it up two weeks, and the Grade 2, $500,000 race will again occupy a similar spot on the calendar when it is run Sept. 8. The race is the richest of 28 stakes planned for the Thoroughbred meet that opens May 4. They are worth a cumulative $2.2 million. Louisiana Downs will race 84 days through Sept. 23.

Vision in Gold missed the Santa Margarita Stakes on Saturday because she is still nursing an injury. She most recently finished in a dead heat for second in the Santa Maria Stakes, a race she won in 2011.

“At first, I thought it was a foot, but after going over her, it seems like it’s up in her shoulder,” said Ron Ellis, who trains Vision in Gold. “She’s still with me at Hollywood Park.”

Ellis said plans are on hold for Vision in Gold until he can determine what is wrong with her.

Vision in Gold has made just two starts since returning from a 10-month layoff.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Rick Violette is one trainer who won’t be happy that Aqueduct’s inner track season will come to a conclusion on Sunday.

Violette, who splits his stable between New York and Florida during the winter, entered Friday’s card with 18 wins, 14 seconds, and 7 thirds from 60 starters at Aqueduct since the inner track opened Nov. 30.

Midnight Sunlight and Madresita are not only the lone fillies in the Grade 2, $358,500 Oklahoma Futurity for Quarter Horses on Saturday night at Remington Park, but also the race’s top two contenders after winning their trials by a combined margin of 2 1/4 lengths. In all, 15 trials were run for the Oklahoma Futurity, a 300-yard race which will share a card with the $135,000 Oklahoma Derby.

Jockey Gerard Melancon can close out what has been a roller-coaster Delta Downs meet with a stakes win in Saturday night’s $60,000 Bonne Chance for fillies and mares. He will ride leading contender Amazing Saint in the one-mile race, which is the first of two stakes on the closing-night 12-race program. The other stakes, the $60,000 Au Revoir, also at a mile, is led by And Music Came and Sligo Joe.

Troubled jockey Tyler Baze has entered a local rehabilitation facility, according to his former agent, Ivan Puhich, who has regularly visited the rider since his absence from the track dating to last fall.

“He’s been in there about four or five days now,” Puhich said. “He was in the hospital for several days. He had liver and kidney problems. They had to wait for his blood-alcohol level to go down. I’m glad he finally went in.”

Rachel Alexandra, the 2009 Horse of the Year, spent the winter of 2009-2010 in New Orleans, and Fair Grounds, doing everything they could to showcase a champion, created a new stakes race in March to suit her. The New Orleans Ladies was meant to provide a stepping-stone to the Grade 1 Apple Blossom the next month at Oaklawn Park, where a long-awaited matchup with Zenyatta was supposed to go down. But things never really went right for Rachel. The weather was periodically awful, costing her precious training time, and Rachel seemed always to be a bit behind.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. has had his share of good horses over the years but none has had him any more excited than his latest star, the 3-year-old Scatter Joy, who will make his second start in a first-level optional claiming race going a mile here at Gulfstream Park on Saturday.