OLDSMAR, Fla. – They call it the Skyway Festival, this two-race series Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs. Twin $75,000 stakes, the Pasco and Gasparilla, purport to serve as bridges to more important races later in this meet, although it remains to be seen what degree of impact either will carry toward those longer and richer events.

The Las Vegas-based casino company that has reached an agreement to buy River Downs in Cincinnati has named Kevin Kaufman the general manager of the racetrack, according to a letter from the president of the company, Pinnacle Entertainment, to its employees.

The current general manager of River Downs is Jack Hanessian, who did not immediately return phone calls on Thursday.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - With the Oaklawn Park racing surface failing to thaw out fast enough following a Sunday snowstorm, track officials have called off Friday’s nine-race opening-day card. Oaklawn is expected to race on Saturday.

It is the fourth time Oaklawn has been forced to cancel an opening-day program. The track lost openers in 2003, 1997, and 1979.

Oaklawn has been unable to open its racing surface for training since the storm due to freezing temperatures. Officials were hoping to train on the track Thursday afternoon, but temperatures stalled in the 20s.

Sweet Goodbye hasn’t raced since finishing fourth as the 2-5 favorite in the Ohio Valley Handicap last May at Mountaineer Racetrack. But based on her fondness for Laurel Park’s main track and her ability to fire fresh, the 6-year-old Sweet Goodbye looks dangeorus in Saturday’s $75,000 What a Summer Stakes.

The six-furlong What a Summer, the first stakes of the Maryland racing season, drew a field of nine fillies and mares.

PHOENIX – You don’t normally equate surging form with an 8-year-old gelding and a 7-year-old gelding. But Saturday’s $35,000 Cotton Fitzsimmons Handicap at Turf Paradise will provide a clash of two rejuvenated veterans, the 8-year-old Carnera and 7-year-old Green Secret. Those two lead a full field of 12 in the mile grass event, named for the former NBA head coach and executive who was a fixture in the Phoenix track’s Turf Club for many years before his death in 2004.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Freezing temperatures are threatening Oaklawn Park’s opening day program on Friday, but officials are proceeding with plans to start the meet as scheduled and hope to be able to train over the surface Thursday afternoon.

If a decision is made to cancel the Friday card, it will be made early Thursday afternoon, said David Longinotti, the assistant general manager for racing at Oaklawn.

“As things stand right now, we plan to do everything we can to race tomorrow,” Longinotti said.

A hard freeze Wednesday night forced Fair Grounds to cancel its racing program Thursday. Morning training was scrapped and track maintenance crews worked to ready the frozen main track for racing in the afternoon, but a section of the surface would not thaw, necessitating the cancellation, which was the first this season.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Schoolyard Dreams, beaten just a nose when second in the Tampa Bay Derby last year, will make his first start in nearly seven months when favored in the eighth of 10 Friday races at Tampa Bay Downs.

Owned by Anthony Mitola and Eric Fein and trained by Derek Ryan, Schoolyard Dreams went off form in three races after being beaten just a nose by Odysseus last March in the Tampa Bay Derby, the race in which the eventual Kentucky Derby winner, Super Saver, finished another half-length back in third.