ARCADIA, Calif. – Express Train and Hot Rod Charlie both had strong years that with a little luck might even have been better, and both will seek to end 2021 on a high note when they face off Sunday at Santa Anita in the Grade 2, $200,000 San Antonio Stakes.

CYPRESS, Calif. - The riders of the second- through fourth-place finishers in the $2,009,825 Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity on Dec. 12 have been fined or suspended for whip violations in the 400-yard Quarter Horse race.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Apprentice jockey Cesar Ortega has resumed exercising horses at Los Alamitos after suffering an injury to his pancreas in a seven-horse spill at Del Mar in August, according to his agent, Patty Sterling.

Sterling said at Santa Anita on Monday that Ortega does not have a timeline for a return to riding.

“He’s back on horses,” Sterling said. “He’s a ways off. It’s taken longer to recover.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Juan Hernandez has been named to ride Dr. Schivel in Sunday’s Grade 1 Runhappy Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita.

Trainer Mark Glatt said on Monday that a decision was reached over the weekend to employ Hernandez, who rode Dr. Schivel to a win in a maiden special weight race at Del Mar in August 2020 when the colt was trained by Luis Mendez.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Although they won’t turn 3 for another week, a trio of locally based juveniles are already being pointed to the traditional Kentucky Derby preps to be decided here this winter, a group that includes the Saffie Joseph Jr.-trained pair of Make It Big and White Abarrio along with trainer Dale Romans’s Giant Game, who capped his 2-year-old campaign with a third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The fast but untested Flightline tuned up for the biggest race of his budding career with a five-furlong work in 1:00.20 on Sunday morning at Santa Anita, one week before his scheduled start here in the $300,000 Runhappy Malibu Stakes.

The seven-furlong Malibu is one of six stakes on the opening-day card, and one of three Grade 1 stakes. In advance of that, a number of horses scheduled to run opening day recorded works on Sunday, including such accomplished runners as Hot Rod Charlie and Hit the Road.

Russ Hudak retired from a 41-year career in racing last Sunday at Los Alamitos.

Hudak, who turns 70 later this month, was primarily known for his work in the last 20 years as a clocker and oddsmaker at Southern California tracks, but briefly worked earlier in his career for Daily Racing Form as a call-taker helping to produce DRF past performances as well as a commentator in the late 1980s on Santa Anita’s KWIN, an in-house radio and television broadcast that was a forerunner to modern simulcasting shows.

Timeless Bounty was claimed for $12,500 at Thistledown on Aug. 24 and for $15,000 at the same Ohio racetrack on Oct. 6. More than two months later, Timeless Bounty hardly seems like the same 3-year-old colt. Owned by Willow’s Green Stables, Timeless Bounty was the 59-1 winner of the $250,000 Steel Valley Sprint Stakes for 3-year-olds at Mahoning Valley in Ohio on Nov. 22.

Timeless Bounty will take his first trip to California for the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at seven furlongs for 3-year-olds on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Leading rider Luis Saez will be conspicuous by his absence here Sunday. Saez was scheduled to ride Wondrwherecragis that afternoon in the $100,000 Gravesend at Aqueduct for trainer Brittany Russell, only to learn Friday morning the horse will have to scratch from the race, according to his agent, Kiaran McLaughlin.

“Brittany just called me and said her horse has an issue and has to come out,” said McLaughlin. “I haven’t decided yet whether to send him up there for the other mounts he’s got on the card, or just give him the day off.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Marc Holliday on Thursday was unanimously elected chairman of the New York Racing Association’s board of directors, the company announced following a meeting of the board.

Last month, Holliday was tabbed as the interim chair when it was announced that Michael Del Giudice was retiring from that role.