HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The Gulfstream stakes schedule the next two weeks consists entirely of $75,000 races formerly known as Sunshine Millions events.

Those races are the Sunshine Classic and Sunshine Sprint next Saturday, followed by the Sunshine Turf and Sunshine Filly and Mare Turf on Jan. 22.

Seven graded stakes are set for Jan. 29, the first major date of 2022, led by the Grade 1, $3 million Pegasus World Cup expected to match Knicks Go and Life Is Good.

Facility upgrades near done

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Superstar jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. was back riding Thursday at Gulfstream Park for the first time since sitting out 30 calendar days for a couple of riding infractions. Ortiz was suspended by the New York stewards for separate incidents on Dec. 3 and 4 at Aqueduct, when he had last been active.

Friday’s eight-race card at Aqueduct was canceled due to a winter storm that brought upward of five inches of snow to the Metropolitan area. Aqueduct was also closed for simulcasting.

Though the snow was expected to end by late morning, a winter weather advisory remained in effect until noon, according to weather.com. Travel was deemed treacherous and all the locally based horses who race at Aqueduct must be vanned over from Belmont Park, where they are stabled.

Training was also canceled Friday morning at Belmont Park.

All stakes at the 2022 spring meet at Keeneland Race Course have undergone purse increases and will be worth a record $7.7 million, including the Blue Grass Stakes being worth $1 million again, officials at the Lexington, Ky., track announced Thursday.

The Grade 2 Blue Grass, to be run April 9, was worth $600,000 in 2020 and $800,000 in 2021 after being a $1 million event from 2015-19. The Blue Grass is one of five stakes on April 9.

In all, 19 stakes will be run at a 15-day spring meet that runs April 8-29.

After a series of storms at Christmastime that disrupted turf racing, conditions have improved at Santa Anita in the early days of January leading to greater use of the turf course.

On Friday and Saturday’s programs, five of the nine races are scheduled for turf. The forecast in the next week is for dry weather.

“The demand is there for the turf,” racing secretary Chris Merz said Thursday.

After a disrupted final two months of 2021, multiple stakes winner Hit the Road will have a workout at Santa Anita this weekend to determine his schedule.

Trainer Dan Blacker said Thursday that Hit the Road might start in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Turf Invitational on Jan. 29 at Gulfstream Park. The $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf is run at 1 1/8 miles.

“It’s not out of the question,” Blacker said. “It depends on how he works this weekend.”

First there was American Theorem leading throughout an allowance race at 1 1/16 miles en route to a convincing win by 2 1/4 lengths. A half-hour later, Cabo Spirit closed from sixth to win his first stakes in the $102,000 Eddie Logan Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf.

For owner Rustin Kretz and trainer George Papaprodromou, the wins by American Theorem and Cabo Spirit in the final two races at Santa Anita last Sunday established a mark of excellence on the first weekend of the year. And the American Theorem-Cabo Spirit $2 late double paid $36.20.

Jockey Manny Franco tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday and will not be permitted to ride until Sunday at the earliest, the New York Racing Association announced Wednesday.

Franco is the third New York-based rider in a week to test positive for COVID, joining Jorge Vargas Jr. and Jalon Samuel. Those two riders were forced to miss their mounts Saturday and Sunday at Aqueduct. Both are expected to return on Thursday provided they are asymptomatic.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer William Morey has maintained a small string of horses in New York this winter, winning with two of his first five starters at the Aqueduct winter meet.

Morey actually began his New York stint at Belmont, running two horses and winning a maiden race with Florida Gator.

Morey, who has a 25-horse string at Turfway Park, was looking for an additional spot to stable horses and New York was chosen at the prompting of a few owners.

“It’s been fun,” Morey said Wednesday from Turfway.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The turmoil caused by the 2021 closure of Arlington Park has led Chicago trainer Britanny Vanden Berg to relocate 20 horses to California this winter.

Vanden Berg’s team arrived on New Year’s weekend and will have its first runner when the 6-year-old gelding Current starts in a $40,000 claimer at a mile on turf on Friday at Santa Anita.