OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Despite having a horse who has won two consecutive races, including a stakes last out, trainer Kelly Breen was still searching for a rider late Wednesday morning for his 3-year-old Courvoisier, who figures to be one of the top choices in Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct.

Greeley and Ben, who was one of the winningest horses of 2021, is now 2 for 2 in 2022 after running arguably the best race of his career in the $75,000 Stonerside Sprint on Sunday at Sam Houston.

“He was literally challenged the entire way, got headed, and just kept finding more,” said owner and trainer Karl Broberg.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Zandon is on schedule to make his 3-year-old debut later this month for Chad Brown.

Jack Christopher – not so much.

Zandon, beaten a nose by Mo Donegal in the Dec. 4 Remsen at Aqueduct in just his second start, will be shipped to Fair Grounds for the Risen Star on Feb. 19 at 1 1/8 miles rather than run in the 1 1/16-mile Holy Bull on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

“We went back and forth on whether to start out with him here,” Brown said. “But we prefer the longer distance of the Risen Star, and it has more points.”

Another Mystery and Fantasioso put on a show winning the Grade 3, $200,000 John B. Connally Turf Cup in a dead heat Sunday at Sam Houston Race Park and now appear headed for a rematch.

Both horses are candidates for the Grade 2, $350,000 Elkhorn over the same mile and a half distance on turf April 23 at Keeneland, their respective trainers said Tuesday.

Monmouth Park in New Jersey has put in place sizeable purse increases for a number of stakes races that will appear on the undercard of its richest race, the $1 million Haskell Stakes, the track announced on Tuesday.

Four graded stakes on the July 23 Haskell undercard will have their purses boosted: the Grade 1 United Nations, from $500,000 last year to $600,000 this year; the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup, from $300,000 to $400,000; the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher, from $250,000 to $400,000; and the Grade 3 Matchmaker, from $150,000 to $200,000.

Elle Z’s game win Saturday in the Fred Aime Memorial Stakes was part of an excellent run for trainer Chris Hartman, who went 4 for 4 Saturday and Sunday with Fair Grounds starters.

“The weekend was wonderful,” said Hartman, who’s up to 15 winners this meet, five behind leading trainer Brad Cox through Sunday. “That was some kind of run from Elle Z.”

The 3-year-old filly North County, freshened after winning the Untapable Stakes on Dec. 26, returned to the Fair Grounds work tab Saturday and is on track to race Feb. 19 in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes.

North County won on turf in her debut before running her career mark to 3 for 3 with a dirt allowance win at Keeneland and a neck victory in the Untapable at Fair Grounds. She’s versatile in terms of racing surface, but her trainer, Brendan Walsh, might have an even better 3-year-old grass filly in his Fair Grounds barn.

Jack Gilligan, the 25-year-old jockey, is set to resume race riding later this week at Fair Grounds.

Gilligan was named to ride a horse on Friday, but said that mount will be scratched and that his first race in more than one year comes Saturday.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – With more than a foot of snow on the ground, turf racing is the furthest thing from most people’s minds around these parts.

Not so for Tom Morley, who has the Grade 1, $500,000 Frank E. Kilroe Mile on March 5 at Santa Anita planned for his Grade 2 winner Tell Your Daddy.

Tell Your Daddy had his third workout of the winter here last Friday, breezing a half-mile in 48.84 seconds over the Belmont Park training track. He got the work in before snow canceled training over the weekend.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – About three weeks ago, trainer Jeremiah O’Dwyer shipped three horses to New York from his Maryland base in part because training had been interrupted at Laurel Park in large part due to track condition.

Oh, the irony when Mother Nature allowed for training and racing at Laurel over the weekend, while training at Belmont and racing at Aqueduct was shuttered due to a winter storm that brought more than a foot of snow to the area.