STICKNEY, Ill. - Trainer Rick Dutrow can count among his 1,472 career victories wins in locales as distant as Dubai. Dutrow, though, has never won a race in Illinois, and his first-ever starter at Hawthorne Race Course will be a New York-bred named Yawanna Twist, one of eight horses entered Tuesday in Saturday's Grade 3 Illinois Derby.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Will the real First Passage stand up?
That's the question handicappers will have to answer when Grade 3 winner First Passage returns off her disappointing 2010 debut in Friday's $57,000 Harmony Lodge Handicap, a 6o1/2-furlong overnight stakes for fillies and mares.
First Passage is one of three horses trainer Marty Wolfson has among the seven entered for the Harmony Lodge. She will carry high weight of 122 pounds if she starts, one more than D'wild Ride.
"I'll see which ones are doing best by Friday and run two of the three," said Wolfson.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - It might be argued that when you win the Eclipse Award for top jockey in North America, there's nowhere to go but down.
Of course, Julien Leparoux, the 2009 Eclipse winner, wouldn't look at it that way. The 26-year-old Frenchman is loving life despite what may appear to be a sluggish start to his repeating as champion jockey. As the 2010 Keeneland spring meet gets under way Friday, Leparoux is happy to be back at the racetrack where he first proved he had the big-time skills to make it anywhere.
"I am always happy to be back at Keeneland," said Leparoux.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The most important of several notable changes at the 167-day Woodbine meet, which begins with a 10-race card on Friday, is the moving of the $1 million Queen's Plate back two weeks to July 4, to accommodate a possible visit by Queen Elizabeth II of England.
Glenn Crouter, Woodbine Entertainment's vice president of media relations and sponsorship, said the 151st running of the Plate has been rescheduled to coincide with a Canadian trip that Queen Elizabeth II has planned for this summer, and to give horsemen more time to prepare for the race.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - It was late last summer when Ken McPeek started thinking about what lay ahead at Keeneland.
"I told my crew, 'We're going to be the leading trainer at Keeneland this fall,' " recalled McPeek.
Darned if they weren't. McPeek and company absolutely slayed 'em, sending out 17 winners, the most at a fall meet since D. Wayne Lukas had 17 in 1995.
Los Alamitos will continue with a three-day racing week through April and possibly longer, track officials said Wednesday.
Earlier this year, Los Alamitos eliminated Thursday racing because of a shortage of race-ready horses, going to a Friday through Sunday format. At the time, track officials indicated that Thursday racing would resume in April, when 2-year-olds began competing.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - There have been some discouraging signals for the Woodbine Entertainment Group this year, with simulcast handles on both breeds down and the Standardbreds hit with a 15 percent purse cut effective April 1.
But Nick Eaves, who currently is president and chief operating officer for WEG and will succeed David Willmot as chief executive officer following the annual board of directors meeting on June 4, is optimistic heading into Friday's opening day of the Thoroughbred meeting.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Keeneland experience can mean different things to different people, with the bottom line being that "we want to create a festival," said track president Nick Nicholson. "It's a package, a recipe. We want this to be fun, and we want it to be different types of fun."
For the horseplayer, however, fun usually means just one thing: winning. And when Keeneland kicks off its 15-day spring meet Friday amid spectacular weather, the focus for racing fans throughout North America will be on getting the money.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - One of the flashpoints here last spring was the expected influx of trainers from the United States who were expected to follow the example of Steve Asmussen and set up season-long divisions at Woodbine.
Much of the anticipation, and concern, over that development came to naught as expected players such as Dale Capuano and Steve Klesaris never established a presence here.
"It just didn't happen," said Steve Lym, racing secretary and a director of racing for Woodbine. "Some of them just couldn't make a go of it."
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Jackson Bend was beaten 8 1/2 lengths by Eskendereya when the two met in the Fountain of Youth in February at Gulfstream Park. Trainer Nick Zito is simply hoping Jackson Bend can cut the gap when the two meet again in Saturday's Grade 1, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct.
"Let's see if he can beat us two lengths,'' Zito said Thursday, before Jackson Bend drew post 5 in a field of six set to run 1 1/8 miles in the Wood. "Our deal has always been if we can get closer to the big horse, someday I'll beat him.''