ARCADIA, Calif. – A trip down Interstate-5 from Pleasanton to Santa Anita gave Coach Bob an upset win in an optional claimer for 3-year-olds on Friday, and has kept trainer Reina Gonzalez in business.

Coach Bob ($47) led throughout the six-furlong race for California-breds, winning by 3 1/2 lengths under red-hot apprentice jockey Eswan Flores, who had three wins on the Friday card.

The victory in the $58,000 race was the richest of Gonzalez’s 10-year career as a trainer. She has been based in Northern California through that time, and has five horses in training.

Tup Take’ Please and Philly Bound, a pair of stakes winners in 2011 who encountered less than smooth sailing in their season debuts two weeks ago, return at a slightly longer distance for Tuesday night’s featured eighth race at Charles Town.

The 6 1/2-furlong two-turn race is open to horses who have not won an allowance or stakes since Sept. 24, nonwinners of four races lifetime, and $20,000 claimers.

Extract the 19-for-19 record posted by a certain Eclipse Award recipient in his barn, and trainer David Wells still had a fine 2011. From 321 other starts last year, Wells won 67 races with horses not named Rapid Redux, good for a .21 win percentage that stacks up well anywhere you go.

NEW ORLEANS – The unbeaten 3-year-old filly Applauding won’t run in the Silverbulletday Stakes at Fair Grounds after showing colic-like symptoms Saturday morning. Applauding was treated with banamine, which is commonly given to horses who are acting colicky, but can’t be used on race day.  

Aqueduct has canceled its live card for Saturday due to a snowstorm that has blanketed the northeast, but Aqueduct and the Belmont Café will be open for simulcasting and NYRA Rewards telebet and internet wagering will be available.

Racing at Aqueduct is expected to resume Sunday. The $75,000 Evening Attire stakes, originally scheduled for Saturday, will be rescheduled for next Saturday.

The New York area was to receive about six inches of snow from the storm, which was expected to continue until late afternoon.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Rumor, the winner of the minor Kalookan Queen Handicap on Jan. 1, worked five furlongs in 1:01 on Friday at Santa Anita  in advance of her Grade 1 debut in the $300,000 Santa Monica Stakes for fillies and mares on Jan. 28.

Rumor worked alone for trainer Richard Mandella, who said he did not expect a quick time.

“We don’t want her leaving it on the racetrack,” Mandella said. “She was ready last month, and we need to keep her happy.”

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Arienza was all the rage last meet at Oaklawn Park, where this daughter of 2002 Horse of the Year Azeri won the first two starts of her career and then ran second in the Grade 2 Fantasy.

Saturday, she returns to the site of her greatest hits looking to recapture her best form in the $50,000 American Beauty. The six-furlong race for fillies and mares drew a strong cast of 11, including stakes winners All About Allie, Rattlin Gypsy, Mindy Sue, and Gleaming.

The work of the day went to Shackleford, who went five furlongs from the half-mile pole in 58.63, breaking off nearly a dozen lengths behind stablemates Cars and Trucks and Fire Attack before easily running down and splitting the pair nearing the wire. Shackleford was set down for the final eighth-mile into the turn, galloped out six furlongs in 1:11.22, and pulled up seven-eighths in 1:25.

Shackleford, runner-up in the Grade 1 Florida Derby here last spring, will make his 2012 debut against a star-studded field of handicap runners in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap on Feb. 11.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. − Apprentice Alex Canchari will never forget this year’s season opener at Oaklawn Park. Not only did he win the first race of the meet in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 18,087, it was also the first win of his career and one of two winners he would have on the Jan. 13 program.

“It was like nothing else,” said Canchari, who turned 18 on Jan. 5. “It’s hard to explain, because when you build something up for so long and try to reach a goal and it finally comes, it’s unbelievable.”

NEW ORLEANS – Considering it immediately follows a six-stakes bonanza, the Fair Grounds Sunday program came up pretty strong – provided one doesn’t harbor an aversion to turf sprints. Three of them form the backbone of a nine-race menu, with “about” 5 1/2-furlong dashes (all for females) carded for maidens and at the first two allowance classes.