Lincoln Race Course begins its second full season of racing under the operation of Omaha Exposition and Racing on Friday night. The 32-day season runs through July 17.

Average daily handle at the recently completed 90-day meet at Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar, Fla., was a record $4,572,054, according to figures released by the track on Wednesday, an increase of 9.2 percent over last year’s figure and the latest in a string of meet-over-meet increases that have propelled Tampa into the upper echelon of North American racetracks.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Trainer Elizabeth Stolzenberg wasn’t planning on being the hottest trainer at Hastings this year. In fact, she was considering stepping back from training horses last December. Thanks to owner Glen Todd, she changed her mind, and the horses she started at the current meet couldn’t be running any better.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Trainer Wayne Catalano sat at a shaded table just outside his Arlington barn on an unseasonably warm Wednesday morning and pointed in to stall number 1, situated right next to the barn office. That was where a big, gangly chestnut 2-year-old took up residence last June 25, a Team Valor colt by Leroidesanimaux whose best days figured to be well ahead of him. His name was Animal Kingdom, and last Saturday at Churchill Downs, Catalano and the rest of the racing world watched him win the Kentucky Derby.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Alternation’s road to the Kentucky Derby was derailed in Arkansas, where he had to be scratched out of the Rebel Stakes in March and where a slow start compromised his chances in the Arkansas Derby.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Trainer Cody Autrey returned to Lone Star Park for the first time in three years this meet, poised to have one of his strongest seasons ever after claiming about 30 horses for Midwest Thoroughbreds over the winter. But less than a month into the meet, the pair has parted company. Autrey is now in a rebuilding mode after losing about 40 horses owned by Midwest.

“It’s a big bite out of your stable,” said Autrey, 31. “I think a lot of the horses were sitting on wins.”

ELMONT, N.Y. – Linda Rice was proud of the fact that she was able to share the Aqueduct spring trainer’s title without winning a single turf race. The move to Belmont Park usually means more turf racing, especially more turf sprints, the type of races Rice has shown an affinity at winning.

CINCINNATI – River Downs will begin what was supposed to be a 93-day meet Friday. The track was scheduled to open April 29, but that was before the rains came and the Ohio River flooded the racing surface, causing the 400-plus horses on the grounds at the time to be evacuated to nearby Turfway Park and to Beulah Park in Columbus. Horses were evacuated April 22 and were able to return April 29, the scheduled opening day, although the track was not opened for training until Tuesday.

Tony Richey is a busy man these days. So busy, in fact, that he finds himself atop the trainer standings at both Evangeline Downs and, 200 miles to the north, Louisiana Downs.

Through the first five weeks of the Evangeline meeting, Richey has had 13 winners to lead Karl Broberg by a single victory. During opening weekend of this year’s Louisiana Downs meeting, he sent out three winners and also holds a slim one-victory advantage.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The evening updates were getting old.

In recent summers, when jockey Garrett Gomez was somewhere in the Eastern time zone, typically in Kentucky, New Jersey, or New York, he often spoke at night to his wife and children back in California, getting caught up with the developments of their lives.

He was a working father, but an absent father, and it was not satisfying.

“I was missing a lot over the years,” Gomez said last weekend.