AUBURN, Wash. -- Defending his Emerald Downs training title has become a yearly pursuit for Tim McCanna. He has 10 of them in his back pocket, including the past four, and with some 50 horses in training at Emerald, and another dozen at Golden Gate, he has got the resources to bag No. 11.

Paddy O’Prado, one of the top turf horses in North America in 2010, will make his 4-year-old debut in the Grade 2, $200,000 Dixie Stakes on the May 21 Preakness undercard at Pimlico, trainer Dale Romans said Wednesday at Churchill Downs.

Romans said he had hoped to make the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic on the May 7 Kentucky Derby undercard at Churchill with Paddy O’Prado, “but I just didn’t feel right about it, him coming off such a long layoff to run in a race like that. We’ll work him another couple of times and just point for Pimlico.”

Managing 2-year-old Quarter Horses at this time of year can sometimes be tricky.

This spring, Adan Farias has 36 2-year-olds in his 94 horse stable at Los Alamitos. Deciding which of those youngsters belong in early season futurities, such as the Kindergarten Futurity trials at Los Alamitos on May 8, and which should be held out in favor of the next major race, the Ed Burke Million Futurity in June, can be difficult.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Miss Lola and Miss Taggart could both crack the top three in Friday’s eighth race at Woodbine, a first-level allowance for fillies and mares going seven furlongs.

Miss Lola did the bulk of her best running last spring, when she won her maiden following a five-month layoff, earning a 72 Beyer Figure in the seven-furlong sprint. In her next appearance June 13, she closed for fifth in the Alywow Stakes on the grass, finishing just two lengths behind victorious Somme.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Handicapping the Louisville weather isn’t quite as difficult as picking the Derby superfecta, but it can fool anybody at any time. Kathy Ritvo was second-guessing herself in mid-morning Wednesday as rain pelted the roof of Barn 41, albeit not quite as hard as earlier, when she went ahead and sent her Derby prospect, Mucho Macho Man, out for a two-mile gallop around 7 a.m.

“I thought I’d get him out before it got any worse,” Ritvo said. “But I do feel bad when I can’t show him off at 8:30.”

Rusty Arnold will have seven chances to extend what has been a remarkable record of consistency and longevity at Keeneland in Lexington. Winless from his first 16 starters at the spring meet, Arnold has two scheduled starters on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and four on Friday.

According to Keeneland officials, Arnold, 56, has saddled at least one winner at every meet here since 1986, with the exception of one meet in the late 1980s when he did not start a horse.

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The likely starting field for the May 7 Kentucky Derby came into sharper focus Tuesday when Uncle Mo, the heavy Derby favorite until his loss in the Wood Memorial, had an encouraging workout at Churchill Downs, and the connections of both J P’s Gusto and The Factor finally made official what had long been expected, that neither would participate.

Suffolk Downs officials on Tuesday announced a 2011 racing schedule comprised largely of three-day racing weeks with plans to card 80 programs and offer more than $103,000 in daily purses at the East Boston, Mass., track.

The 76-year-old facility will open May 21, Preakness Day, then run Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays through Nov. 5 to coincide with the Breeders’ Cup. The track will also race Friday, Nov. 4, and at least six other dates will be scheduled later in the summer and fall.

Atlantic City Race Course in New Jersey is scheduled to open on Thursday for a brief six-day meet, highlighted by the possible start of Eldaafer, the winner of the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Marathon, in a Saturday allowance race.