STICKNEY, Ill. – Hawthorne announced earlier this week that beginning with Friday’s card, purses will be paid to last place in its races.

“My feeling is we need to make some changes to encourage more participation in races,” Hawthorne assistant general manager Jim Miller said in a press release. “I’m not going to lie: This spring meet has been a struggle to fill races.”

Perhaps more disturbing than short fields, which long have been a feature of spring racing in Chicago, is the fact that filling races has been getting harder, not easier, as this meet has gone on.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Subscribing to the theory that familiarity breeds success, the connections of defending Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic winner Unrivaled Belle chose the Grade 2, $300,000 La Troienne Stakes at Churchill Downs over the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park as an early season objective.

To get to the May 6 La Troienne, Unrivaled Belle will begin her 2011 campaign in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Rampart Stakes at Gulfstream Park. The Rampart shares the bill on Saturday’s 12-race card with the Grade 2, $300,000 Gulfstream Oaks for 3-year-old fillies.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – In their previous association together, owner Joe Allen and trainer Kiaran McLaughlin combined to win nine stakes races, including two graded events with the Irish-bred turf mare Volga.

Eight years after Volga won the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor and six years after they parted company, Allen and McLaughlin have reunited and will send out Army Scout – a 4-year-old son of Volga by Giant’s Causeway – in a seemingly strong second-level allowance turf race that serves as the featured event Friday at Gulfstream Park.

ARCADIA, Calif. – With or without Jaycito, the $1 million Santa Anita Derby on April 9 is likely to have a large field.

As of Wednesday, there were 11 probable starters for the West Coast’s leading prep for the Kentucky Derby, a list that tentatively includes Jaycito, the winner of the Grade 1 Norfolk Stakes last year and the runner-up in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes in his 3-year-old debut on March 12.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The promise that Dubawi Heights showed in England as a 2-year-old in 2009, a season in which she was group stakes-placed and earned $380,796, never came to fruition in California last year.

All she had to show for a three-race campaign in 2010 was a maiden win.

“She had little niggling problems – that means we couldn’t get any continuity, getting two races close,” trainer Simon Callaghan said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Be Bullish and Deputy Daney, a pair of geldings who returned quick dividends winning midwinter stakes races in their first starts after being claimed, head a short but salty field of five older sprints in the $60,000 Mr. Nasty overnight stakes on Friday.

Two starts back, the leather-tough New York-bred Be Bullish was claimed by Richard Dutrow Jr. for $75,000, a not inconsiderable sum for a 6-year-old gelding making the 45th start of his career.

The marquee meet of Maryland’s racing season begins Friday, when Pimlico opens for eight weeks, culiminating with the closing-day $1 million Preakness Stakes.

More than the usual excitement could surround the 136th running of the middle leg of racing’s Triple Crown, depending on the outcome of Sunday’s Florida Derby and next weekend’s Santa Anita Derby. At this point, five horses expected to run in those two stepping-stones to the Kentucky Derby and Preakness remain eligible for a $5.5 million bonus.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine Racetrack will be a very busy place this weekend.

At approximately 6 p.m. Friday evening, a crowd of some 350 people will begin gathering indoors on the third floor of the grandstand for the 36th annual Sovereign Awards ceremony honoring the top performers in Canadian Thoroughbred racing and breeding.

Outside, Woodbine’s 18th annual winter Standardbred meeting will be continuing with an 11-race card starting at 7:30 p.m.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Flashpoint is scheduled to run Sunday at Gulfstream Park. The question is will he go postward as the odds-on favorite in the seven-furlong, Grade 2 Swale or as the one to catch later that afternoon in the $1 million Florida Derby?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The results of several key prep races in recent weeks has led to eight new names for the third and final pool in the 2011 Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which opens its three-day run Friday at noon Eastern at tracks and wagering outlets throughout North America.