ARCADIA, Calif. - Jockey Garrett Gomez underwent surgery to have screws and a stabilizing plate inserted in his left ankle on Thursday following an accident near the Santa Anita paddock on Jan. 8.

Gomez, 40, is expected to be sidelined until at least early March.

Pam Gomez, the jockey’s wife, said her husband will learn more about his expected recovery time at a doctor’s appointment on Jan. 24. She said the extent of the injury “was a little more than expected.” The surgery required the insertion of 10 screws and a plate.

ARCADIA, Calif. -  Secret Circle, the winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Sprint in November and second to Out of Bounds in the Sham Stakes on Jan. 7, is being considered for the $250,000 Southwest Stakes over a mile at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas on Feb. 20, Baffert said.

"He might get a shot in the Southwest,” trainer Bob Baffert said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Modern Child, a half-brother to General Maximus, heads a field of eight New York-bred colts and geldings set to race six furlongs in Sunday’s nominal first-level allowance feature at Aqueduct.

Modern Child comes off a second-place finish as the 6-5 favorite to Ground Force in this same condition on Dec. 10.

“I thought he ran good. There was a horse that got loose on the lead on a real speed-favoring track,” said Joe Imperio, trainer of Modern Child.

Trainer Larry Jones said he wasn’t certain where or when Joyful Victory would next start after the 4-year-old filly made her first start following a long layoff Wednesday. But Jones is sure that Joyful Victory will return to dirt after finishing second while making her grass debut in a typically slow-paced Fair Grounds turf race.

Nehro, the 2011 Kentucky Derby runner-up, posted his first timed workout of 2012 on Thursday, going an easy half-mile in 53 seconds.

Nehro joined trainer Steve Asmussen’s Fair Grounds string in early December, and training for his comeback has proceeded favorably.

“The horse is coming back nicely,” Asmussen said. “He had three two-minute licks and now the timed work, and hopefully, we’ll slowly pick up the schedule and everything will go smoothly.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Ignacio Correas IV has picked his spots well when he has shipped hoses to New York from his base at owner Kevin Plank’s Sagamore Farm in Maryland.

Since the fall of 2010, Correas has run 16 horses in New York, winning four races and finishing in the money with five others. Two of those four wins came in stakes – Monzon in the 2011 Count Fleet at Aqueduct and Millionreasonswhy in the Grade 2 Matron at Belmont in July.

Los Alamitos stewards have ordered the redistribution of $180,900 in purses from six races run in October after positive tests for the banned medication ziplaterol were found in runners trained by Adan Farias.

Zilpaterol is designed to increase muscle mass in livestock. The medication has properties that resemble anabolic steroids.

The Fair Grounds starting gate can accommodate 14 horses in main-track route races, and – somewhat surprisingly – all stalls might be needed for the Jan. 21 Lecomte Stakes.

The third and fourth races on Friday at Fair Grounds were run for purse money because of a failure in the totalizator system.

“There was a problem with the software in the tote system that displays the odds,” Eric Halstrom, Fair Grounds vice president and general manager for racing, said of the reason for the tote delay. “They lost that and it took them a while to get it back.”

The tote provider at Fair Grounds is Amtote.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Drill, the winner of the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity last September, but comprehensively beaten in his last three starts, is expected to make his 3-year-old debut in the $150,000 San Vicente Stakes over seven furlongs on Feb. 19, trainer Bob Baffert said on Friday.

Friday at Santa Anita, Drill officially worked a half-mile in 48 seconds, although Baffert said the workout started 4 1/2 furlongs from the finish line. Baffert said that Drill galloped out six furlongs in 1:12.40.

“That’s pretty impressive,” he said. “He really likes this track.”