ARCADIA, Calif. – Pick-six pools are shrinking in Southern California, yet the trend will be unnoticed Thursday at Santa Anita.

A string of opening-day upsets generated a carryover of $148,184 into Thursday, when bettors are expected to wager more than $750,000 chasing the pick six on races 3-8.

Monday’s $277,394 pick-six pool was the lowest opening-day pool in four years and a decline of nearly 40 percent from opening day one year ago. The good news for bettors is the Thursday carryover will negate much of the 23.68 percent takeout. First post is 1 p.m.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Though he admitted that there were others who could have discovered it, New York Racing Association president and CEO Charles Hayward on Tuesday took responsibility for the mistake that led to NYRA charging too high a takeout rate on certain wagers for a 15-month period, an error that cost bettors $7.9 million.

Champ Pegasus, the millionaire multiple graded stakes winner, will resume training in February after undergoing surgery for a cannon bone injury suffered in the fall.

Trainer Richard Mandella said that a screw was placed in Champ Pegasus’s cannon bone after a second-place finish in the Clement Hirsch Turf Championship on Oct. 2. The injury disrupted plans for a potential start in the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Turf or Japan Cup in November. Champ Pegasus was second in the 2010 BC Turf.

Midnight Transfer is likely to start in an allowance race around two turns next month after winning a maiden race over six furlongs on Monday’s opening day.

Trainer Carla Gaines said she had no specific plans for the 2-year-old colt, who is by Hard Spun, but was impressed by his victory in his fourth start. Ridden by Joel Rosario, Midnight Transfer ($6.40) stalked a quick pace of 21.45 and 44.03 seconds set by 9-5 favorite Bernster, rallied three wide, and pulled clear to win by 4 3/4 lengths in 1:08.02.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The coming months may call for a change in surface for Mr. Commons and international travel for The Factor. Both 3-year-olds won graded stakes at Santa Anita on Monday’s opening day of the winter-spring meeting.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – At the same time trainer Stanley Gold was orchestrating Awesome Feather’s undefeated, Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old campaign in 2010, he was guiding the fortunes of a 2-year-old colt he also felt had exciting potential. Unfortunately, not only did Grande Shores’s juvenile campaign end prematurely, it’s taken Gold until the final week of the homebred’s 3-year-old season to finally get him back to the races.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Thursday’s $75,000 Swirlaway Stakes at Aqueduct drew a field of only six New York-bred juvenile fillies, but the race is a complex handicapping puzzle. Three of the contenders have yet to prove themselves on a dry dirt surface, two have won only in the maiden claiming ranks, and one has simply not run very fast.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Capt. Candyman Can has had some bumps along the way, but the Grade 1 winner is ready to resume his career once more in Saturday’s Grade 3 Mr. Prospector.

Trainer Ian Wilkes had to stop on Capt. Candyman Can for nearly 15 months following his eighth-place finish in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Sprint and again this spring after his third-place finish in the Grade 3 Aristides at Churchill Downs. But after working five furlongs in 1:02 at Palm Meadows on Tuesday, Capt. Candyman Can looks like a go for the six-furlong Mr. Prospector, Wilkes said.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Michelle Nihei and Jessica Campitelli got a belated Christmas present when they saddled two winners apiece on Monday’s card.

Nihei’s two winners couldn’t have been any more different. Donnatale, a 2-year-old Tale of the Cat filly, scored an impressive victory over maiden special weight opposition under jockey John Velazquez in her debut. Woodford Belle, on the other hand, was fit enough returning from a 16-month layoff to capture a 1 3/8-mile optional claiming race on the turf in her U.S. debut with Edgar Prado aboard.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Redeemed continues to work regularly  for his 2012 debut, going five furlongs in 1:02.88 and galloping out six furlongs in 1:16 here Tuesday.