Trainer Marty Wolfson said he plans to be patient with his steadily improving 4-year-old Troilus who defeated a strong field of second-level optional claiming horses that included Grade 3 winner Endorsement and Travers third-place finisher J W Blue here Sunday.

Troilus, a son of Speightstown, was transferred to Wolfson’s barn by owner John Fort’s Peachtree Stable at the end of the Saratoga meet and won a pair of allowance races at Calder going five furlongs and a mile prior to passing his first real class check over the weekend.

Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. happily reported that the injuries his multiple Grade 2 winner Arson Squad suffered when breaking down just before completing a workout here Saturday do not appear to be life-threatening, although his racing career is over.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Nick Zito said he couldn’t have been happier with Casual Trick’s second-place finish behind Reveron in Sunday’s Gulfstream Park Derby, even though he came out on the short end of a half-length decision.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Chips All In won the Eddie Logan Stakes over a mile on turf at Santa Anita this past Saturday, leaving trainer Jeff Mullins with essentially the entire 3-year-old stakes calendar for future options.

In his first five starts, Chips All In has won on a dirt surface, two synthetic tracks, and now turf. Mullins would prefer to stay on turf, but there are no additional races for the division on the rest of the Santa Anita winter-spring schedule. An overnight race is likely to be added in the spring.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Bauble Queen will be kept to distance races on turf after winning her first stakes in the Grade 2 Robert Frankel Stakes for females over 1 1/8 miles on Sunday.

“I think she wants to go farther than that,” said owner Joe Masino of Class Racing Stable. “I think we would want to stay on grass.”

Trained by Eric Kruljac, Bauble Queen was second or third in three consecutive stakes at a mile or 1 1/16 miles from mid-August to early December at Del Mar, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. “She had wide trips and couldn’t get there at the mile,” Masino said.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Big turf stakes are on the itinerary for graded winner Compari, the feature-race favorite making his second start back Thursday at Santa Anita.

At one mile on grass, the $65,000 allowance is perfect for a gelding who finished a bang-up second in his comeback sprint six weeks ago. “He’s better going a mile,” trainer Marty Jones said. “He can use his speed to his advantage.”

Compari, 4 for 5 on the Santa Anita turf, enters Thursday with only one knock – price. Compari is the 9-5 favorite on track linemaker Jon White’s early line.

Jockey Bonnie Castaneda was scheduled to undergo surgery this week at University Hospital in Cincinnati after sustaining multiple fractures in her neck and back in a spill at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky on Sunday.

Castaneda, 50, was injured when her mount, Jolinda, clipped heels and fell in the fourth race, a $5,000 maiden-claiming event. Her husband, former jockey Marco Castaneda, is the trainer of Jolinda, who was not seriously injured.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Most trainers look forward to stretching their top 3-year-old prospects out around two turns for the first time, and Chuck Peery is no exception to the rule. Peery will give his promising 3-year-old filly The Cat’s All That an opportunity to try a route of ground in Thursday’s $53,500 main event at Gulfstream Park, a race to be decided under entry-level allowance conditions at 1 1/16 miles over the main track.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The newest member of the 40-something club in the Santa Anita jockey’s room was the man to beat on New Year’s weekend.

Garrett Gomez turned 40 on Sunday and promptly swept the three stakes on Sunday and Monday. He won the Kalookan Queen Handicap on Rumor and the Robert Frankel Stakes on Bauble Queen on Sunday and Monday’s Monrovia Stakes on Mizdirection.

Two days into the season, Gomez led the nation’s riders with earnings of $201,600.

“That’s a great way to start the year,” he said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Bruce Levine said he didn’t mind paying twice as much as he had to in order to obtain Union Victory. Given the elevated purses in New York these days, it becomes a lot easier to make a quicker and more lucrative return on one’s investment.