INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Maybe a change of surface will revive Midnight Interlude’s season.

After winning the Santa Antia Derby in an upset on April 9, Midnight Interlude was a bust in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, finishing 16th in the Kentucky Derby and 13th in the Preakness Stakes.

Owner Arnold Zetcher and trainer Bob Baffert skipped the Belmont Stakes, and brought Midnight Interlude back to California. Friday evening at Hollywood Park, Midnight Interlude makes his turf debut in the $70,000 Tsunami Slew Stakes over a mile.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Al Stall Jr. won the Stephen Foster Handicap last year with Blame, but the 49-year-old trainer refrains from making unfair comparisons when it comes to Apart, the colt he will run Saturday in the Foster.

Blame earned a divisional championship while banking more than $4.3 million for Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, and with Apart having earned only a fraction of that ($640,018) for Dilschneider, Stall is content to focus strictly on what Apart might be able to accomplish in the coming months.

There has been an influx of Michigan trainers and riders to Thistledown this year following the closing of Pinnacle Race Course. Four of the former Michigan trainers are in the top 10 in the standings, including leader Robert Gorham who has 10 wins. Michigan regulars Ronald Allen Sr. and Richard Rettele each have 4 wins and Laura Jackson has 3.

In the jockeys’ race, Michigan rider Federico Mata leads the pace with 19 winners from 73 mounts. Perennial local riding leader Luis Gonzalez is second with 12 wins from 47 rides.

Catlaunch won the $50,000 Gendelman last Saturday for the third straight year at River Downs. It was also the third straight year that the mile and a sixteenth event was taken off the turf course and run over the main track.

The Gendelman was the 21st stakes victory for the now 10-year-old Catlaunch, who has now won 37 of 86 starts and earned $983,000.
Trainer Ivan Vazquez said the old gelding’s future is up to him.

It’s Me Mom is ready for next Tuesday’s $100,000 Satin and Lace after beating older fillies and mares in the allowance prep for the stakes.

“It was the first time she faced older horses and I wanted to see how she would handle them,” trainer Lynne Scace said. “Considering the outcome, I would say she did fine.”

It’s Me Mom led from start to finish while winning the prep by 2 1/4 lengths over Presque Isle’s Tapeta track. The race was at the same 5 1/2-furlong distance as the Satin and Lace.

“She absolutely loves this surface,” Scace said.

Humble Smarty is coming off a track-record performance at Canterbury Park and may make his next start in a six-figure stakes. Not bad for a horse who was orphaned at birth and slow to get the hang of the racing game.

In 2004, his dam, Humble Danzig, died during foaling and Humble Smarty was unable to stand and nurse. His trainer, Brett Creighton, was present at the foaling while working for owner/breeder James Danaher and hand-nursed him until he could take his milk from a bucket.

“I was his mother, really” Creighton said.

Six horses who started in a Kentucky Derby prep race, and one who exits the Derby itself, are part of a deep, competitive field entered in the $450,000 Red Legend Stakes on Saturday at Charles Town.

The Red Legend, for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs around two turns, drew a field of 10, and may well have J P’s Gusto as the favorite. J P’s Gusto failed to factor in the Arkansas Derby and Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn, but returns to a shorter distance over which he won the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity last summer.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – In the classic Quarter Horse movie “Casey’s Shadow,” the order of finish of the 1975 All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs is altered in a Hollywood ending to the story inspired by Rocket’s Magic.

“It went better for the movie for the other horse to win, but in actuality he ran third,” said Jerry Burgess, a steward at Lone Star Park.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Switch is a multiple Grade 1 winner at seven furlongs, a graded stakes winner at 1 1/16 miles, and nearly won a Grade 1 over 1 1/8 earlier this year.

The 4-year-old filly can seemingly do it all, but a time is approaching when owners Lee and Susan Searing and trainer John Sadler will decide whether to focus on sprints or routes for the rest of 2011.

Switch’s performance in Saturday’s $250,000 Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park could make that an easier decision.

AUBURN, Wash. – Long before he helped build Emerald Downs and took up residence as track president, Ron Crockett got his kicks as a horseplayer. He like the old-fashioned win bet because it was the shortest and most logical path to profits. Exotics? Crockett wasn’t a fan, and truth be told, he still isn’t. But Crockett answers to a clientele with an endless appetite for new wagers, and those patrons were hungry for the pick five.