STICKNEY, Ill – There’s a lot riding on the 2012 winter-spring meet that begins Friday at Hawthorne Race Course. Everything, perhaps.

The 2011 spring meet here paid out average daily purses of just $119,000, a pittance in today’s slots-fueled racing world. Field size was dismal, the weather was bad, and handle lacked luster. At the annual Illinois Racing Board dates awards meeting last summer, the viability of a winter-spring meet in Chicago, which Hawthorne inherited when neighboring Sportsman’s Park went belly-up, was openly questioned.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Frumious, winner of the Grade 2 Palos Verdes Stakes last month, will miss an intended start in the $2 million Golden Shaheen Sprint on March 31 in Dubai after suffering a recent injury, trainer Jeff Bonde said.

The injury was detected after Frumious worked a half-mile in 46.80 seconds at Hollywood Park on Feb. 2, Bonde said. He did not elaborate on the nature of the injury, other than to say that the 6-year-old gelding “aggravated himself.”

“He’ll take a little break,” Bonde said.”I think he’ll be off for 60 days. We won’t see him until later this year.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – This Ones for Phil may not be the same horse he was in his youth, when he took the Grade 2 Swale and back-to-back runnings of the Sunshine Millions Sprint.

But if the gelding, now 6 years old, can run the race back that he did last month winning an optional claimer over the inner track, that could be good enough to win a high-priced claimer that serves as the Friday feature on Aqueduct’s nine-race card.

It’s usually the first question anyone asks Lynn Whiting when they meet him and find out he’s a racehorse trainer: “Have you ever won the Kentucky Derby?” Fortunately, he can answer yes.

Twenty years ago, Whiting achieved the dream of every trainer when he won the Derby, with the longshot Lil E. Tee, who gave another local favorite of Kentucky, Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day, his lone win in America’s greatest race. Day has long since retired, but Whiting, now 72, is still making the rounds at the barn, every morning.

ARCADIA, Calif. – It is the last Saturday in March that has become the immediate springtime focus for the owners and trainers of California-bred 3-year-olds.

The March 31 program at Santa Anita includes the first running of the $200,000 Echo Eddie Stakes for California-bred 3-year-olds over 6 1/2 furlongs, a race that is part of the newly formed Golden State Series.

“It’s definitely on our calendar,” trainer Tim Yakteen said.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Last year it was Uncle Mo. This winter it will be Animal Kingdom who will use a race at Gulfstream Park as a prep for his first major goal of the season when Animal Kingdom, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Eclipse Award as top 3-year-old male, launches his 2012 campaign in a 1 1/16-mile optional claiming and allowance event over the turf here Saturday. Trainer Graham Motion is pointing Animal Kingdom for the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 31.

Even if Pat Devereux Jr. sends out Private Prayer to a mild upset of the Friday feature at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, the Kentucky native probably won’t be in the win photo.

“I’m only in the picture if we have no other representation,” said Devereux, an old-school private trainer for the Coteau Grove Farms of Keith and Ginger Myers. “That’s the way the trainers did it back in the day.”

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Secret Circle and Longview Drive were among four Southern California-based 3-year-olds who flew into Arkansas on Tuesday in advance of the Grade 3, $250,000 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn on Monday. The shippers, along with local stakes winner Junebugred, who breezed a bullet half-mile Tuesday, top a list of 21 probables for the one-mile Southwest, which has a good chance of being split into two divisions. If it is, each division will be a Grade 3, and each will have a purse of $250,000, said David Longinotti, the assistant general manager for racing at Oaklawn.

The Feb. 25 Risen Star has picked up another likely local runner in Afford, who won a first-level route allowance race by a nose Feb. 9. Afford, a Jim Tafel homebred by Street Sense, is a half-brother to Fast Alex, who is scheduled to start in the Mineshaft Handicap on the same day. Greg Geier trains both horses.

Bourbon Courage, who earned the second-highest 2012 Beyer Speed Figure for a 3-year-old, a 102, in his debut victory Feb. 3, is likely to make his next start in a first-level allowance race, trainer Kellyn Gorder said.

“We’re not quite sure what we’ll do yet, but we’re thinking about just taking the next logical step and running him in a one-other-than allowance race, and then go from there,” Gorder said.