LEXINGTON, Ky. – Back in 2006, Todd Pletcher got all the way up to 50 starters at the Keeneland spring meet, and that wasn’t a radical outlier. Pletcher ran 47 horses in 2008 and regularly had 30 or more starters during Aprils at Keeneland. That pace slowed considerably in recent years, with Pletcher down to just 13 runners during the spring meet of 2017, but the Hall of Fame trainer said he plans greater participation during this April meeting.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The last few weeks in Florida were the calm before the Chad Brown storm.

Brown has made a habit of using the winter months to mostly prepare for richer races in Kentucky and New York while racing sparingly – a relative term, given the depth of his stable – at Gulfstream Park, where he went 16 for 61 with three stakes wins, and at Tampa Bay Downs, where he was a gaudy 18 for 39, also with three stakes wins.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Woodbine Entertainment, in partnership with Century Mile, has announced the winner of this year’s Grade 3 Canadian Derby will be awarded free entry to the Grade 3 Ontario Derby, with the potential of earning a $50,000 bonus.

The Canadian Derby will be run Aug. 20 at Century Mile in Edmonton, Alberta. The winner will receive free entry to the Oct. 23 Ontario Derby at Woodbine. If a horse captures both events, the winning connections will receive a bonus of $50,000, offered evenly by Woodbine and Century Mile.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The first weekend of April has revived the season of 2021 champion apprentice Jessica Pyfer.

In the first three months of the year, Pyfer had 1 win from 42 mounts at Santa Anita. On Saturday and Sunday, she rode a winner on each program, including a late pickup mount on Pinedale in the fourth race Sunday.

Pyfer said a third-place finish on 23-1 Race Judicata on Friday for her stepfather, trainer Phil D’Amato, provided a boost.

“I rode one for my dad and was third,” she said. “I had so much fun.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Two races into her American career, Excelerina is undefeated, but has yet to show her best effort.

That’s the point of view of trainer Phil D’Amato, who will test Excelerina in Saturday’s Grade 2 Royal Heroine Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Santa Anita.

Excelerina was winless in three modest races in Ireland last year, but won a maiden special weight race by 2 1/2 lengths on Feb. 6 and an allowance race by 2 1/4 lengths on March 11. Flavien Prat rode Excelerina in those races, which were run at 1 1/8 miles.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Neither rain nor cold nor the gloomy end to the basketball season will prevent the Keeneland spring meet from opening this weekend to great enthusiasm here in the Bluegrass region and beyond.

“We all wish the forecast was better,” Gatewood Bell, now in his second year as vice president of racing at Keeneland, said early Monday, “but it won’t stop us from having a great start to the meet.”

ARCADIA, Calif. - Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella has at least one 3-year-old bound for Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May.

On Saturday at Santa Anita, Sumter won his third consecutive start in the $100,000 Singletary Stakes at a mile on turf, which is likely to lead to a start in the Grade 2 American Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs on May 7.

Typically, the toughest decision an owner has to make the day after winning a race is where to run that horse next. In the case of Weyburn, the owners - Robert and Mark Krembil’s Chiefswood Stables - have to decide who will train the horse for his next start.

Weyburn won Saturday’s $100,000 Sir Shackleton in his first start for Brendan Walsh. The horse had made his first eight starts for Jimmy Jerkens, including a 46-1 upset of last year’s Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct. The owners sent Weyburn to Walsh for the winter because Jerkens was not sending horses to South Florida.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - It has been 29 years since trainer Shug McGaughey won the Kentucky Oaks, and 19 years since he last had a runner in the prestigious race for 3-year-old fillies at Churchill Downs.

This year McGaughey will return to the Oaks with Kathleen O., who cemented her status as one of the top contenders with a 2 3/4-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Gulfstream Park Oaks. That victory was her fourth in as many starts.

Trainers Sean McCarthy and Tim Yakteen will take control of horses trained by Bob Baffert when the Hall of Fame trainer begins a 90-day suspension Monday for a 2021 medication violation found in Kentucky Derby first-place finisher Medina Spirit, Santa Anita officials said Saturday.

McCarthy will care for a majority of the stable, while Yakteen will have a select group of candidates that are being prepared for the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 6 and 7.