Veteran trainer Neil Pessin celebrated a successful Saturday afternoon with a rollicking Saturday night in New Orleans. Pessin won the Louisiana Stakes with the improving Happy American and sent out first-time starter Sweet Alyssa to a 3-year-old filly sprint maiden score in Saturday’s second race. Maiden 3-year-old Baseline Beater rallied from a mile back to finish second in race 10, a two-turn maiden. And then things really got wild.

“I was at the barn until 8, then I got fast-food drive-thru, went home, and went to bed,” Pessin said.

Push a 3-year-old too early in the year, and you won’t have a horse left for the Kentucky Derby. Don’t push enough, and your horse might not have sufficient qualifying points to make the 20-horse Derby field.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Arabian Knight, romping debut winner last fall at Keeneland and among the most highly regarded 3-year-old colts in California, will ship to Oaklawn Park for his 2023 debut in the Grade 3, $750,000 Southwest Stakes on Jan. 28.

Trainer Bob Baffert on Sunday confirmed plans to ship the $2.3 million Uncle Mo colt to the Southwest, a 1 1/16-mile race he has won five times including in 2022 with Newgrange. Plans call for Arabian Knight to ship Tuesday to Oaklawn.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Michelle Giangiulio was suspended 10 calendar days and fined $1,000 for an overage of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory phenylbutazone in the post-race sample of Eight and Sand, who won the ninth race at Aqueduct on Dec. 11.

Giangiulio, who waived her right of appeal, began serving the suspension Friday. The ban runs through Jan. 29. 

Eight and Sand was disqualified and ordered unplaced in the order of finish. Her owners, Ten Strike Racing, had to forfeit the $19,250 first-place purse.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Junior Alvarado posted the 2,000th victory of his outstanding riding career Saturday when Broadway Force won the fifth race at Gulfstream Park.

Trainer Doug O’Neill is sending a team of six runners to Dubai on Monday with the goal of having a representative or two in the Group 2 United Arab Emirates Derby on March 25.

The $1 million UAE Derby is run at 1 3/16 miles and is a pivotal qualifying race for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 6.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jockey Tyler Gaffalione booted home the 2,000th winner of his outstanding riding career in the sixth race Friday at Gulfstream Park.

Gaffalione, 28, grew up in nearby Davie; both his grandfather, Robert, and father, Steve, were jockeys. He rode his first winner in September 2014 at Gulfstream and went on to earn the Eclipse Award for outstanding apprentice in 2015. His greatest victories include the 2019 Preakness with War of Will and two Breeders’ Cup events last fall at Keeneland.

Ginobili, who won the second stakes of his career in the Fifth Season Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Jan. 14, is likely to race in the Middle East in coming months.

Trainer Peter Miller said on Friday that races in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 25 and Dubai on March 25 are under consideration.

The options include a start in the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap, a $600,000 race at 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn Park on Feb. 18, followed by the Group 2 Godolphin Mile or Group 1 Golden Shaheen Sprint at six furlongs in Dubai.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jason Huayas is not your typical apprentice jockey.

He did not graduate from a famous jockeys school and didn’t start riding races until last April at the age of 29. Now 30, married with two children, Huayas is trying to launch a career in one of the toughest professions around. With nine wins at Aqueduct since Dec. 1, things are off to a promising start. Overall, Huayas has ridden 21 winners in his career and rides as a seven-pound apprentice.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Al Stall Jr. has made the occasional trip to Gulfstream Park for long-ago Breeders’ Cups and such, but his recollection of the only time he actually ran a horse here isn’t a very good one.

“The Pegasus, the mud,” Stall said Friday from his Fair Grounds base in New Orleans when recalling the 27-length drubbing of Tom’s d’Etat in the 2019 Pegasus World Cup, which was won over a very sloppy track by City of Light. “Really wasn’t all that much fun.”