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.

Saturday’s California Derby at Golden Gate Fields is a stepping-stone to next month’s Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby, but it’s hard to envision a better stakes race being held here this year.

The $100,000 1 1/16-mile race drew a full field of 12 runners, seven of them coming off a victory.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Three prominent 3-year-olds worked Wednesday in Southern California.

Turbulent Descent, the leading 3-year-old filly on the circuit, worked five furlongs in 1:00.60 at Hollywood Park. The winner of the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet last month, Turbulent Descent will make her 2011 debut in the $250,000 Las Virgenes Stakes over a mile at Santa Anita on Feb. 5.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Blind Luck, a leading contender for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding 3-year-old filly of 2010, worked a half-mile in 48 seconds Wednesday, preparing for her 2011 debut in Sunday’s $150,000 El Encino Stakes for 4-year-old fillies.

Dan Ward, assistant to trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, timed Blind Luck in 23.40 seconds through the final quarter-mile of her workout. The El Encino will be Blind Luck’s first start since a second in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 5. Blind Luck has won 9 of 15 starts and $2,388,712.

A year after Zenyatta shipped in for the Apple Blossom, the filly and mare ranks at Oaklawn are quite deep. Larry Jones has three of the best females on the grounds in Havre de Grace, who was third in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Ladies' Classic in her last start Nov. 5; No Such Word, who took the Grade 1 Gazelle at Aqueduct in her most recent out Nov. 27; and Payton d’Oro, a Grade 2 winner of more than $400,000.

I Want Revenge continues to work forwardly for his 2011 debut, which is expected to come in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap on Feb. 5.

Working immediately after the first renovation break and into a very strong headwind down the backstretch, I Want Revenge posted splits of 24.66 seconds, 36.98, and 49.47 before completing the distance in 1:13.80 with a final quarter in 24.23.

“I was very happy with the work,” trainer Dick Dutrow said. “And if he keeps working like he did this morning he’ll run in the Donn.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – Square Eddie, winner of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity in 2008 but a horse plagued by injuries and setbacks for the last two years, comes out of retirement after an 11-month layoff in an optional claimer over 6 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on Friday.

Despite the gap between races, and Square Eddie’s seven-race losing streak dating to the Breeders’ Futurity, trainer Doug O’Neill is highly confident about the 5-year-old’s chances.

“He’s ready to win,” O’Neill said. “His times are solid, and he’s bouncing out of his works.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – There were 2,422 racehorses on the backstretches at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park earlier this month, Santa Anita director of racing Mike Harlow said Wednesday, a drop of about 400 horses from a census taken by racing officials in early September.

The reduction in inventory, caused by reasons such as injuries, retirement, and the relocation of horses to other circuits, struck Santa Anita on Sunday when the track did not draw entries as scheduled for Friday’s eight-race program. Friday’s entries were taken Wednesday; the program features 57 entrants.

With its tight-turned bullring configuration, shadowy night racing, and a tricky track surface some horses fail to handle, Delta Downs is full of potential pitfalls. It seems like it takes a certain sort of horse to successfully ship in to the little track in Western Louisiana.

“I think it does,” said trainer Bret Calhoun. “But I just don’t know what it is, except for trying them.”