HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The decision by Fair Grounds to rearrange its stakes schedule and push the Louisiana Derby back to March 27 did much more than simply motivate Gulfstream management to move the Grade 1 Florida Derby up a week to March 20 to avoid a potential head-to-head conflict between the two races. It has also put both tracks in competition for the plethora of outstanding 3-year-olds stabled in south Florida this winter.

ALBANY, Calif. - Golden Gate Fields announced Friday that due to declining handle it would cancel the Grade 3 Golden Gate Fields Turf and two other stakes and will reduce purses by an average of 7.5 percent when racing resumes next Thursday.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Dale Romans proved he was part trainer, part handicapper, and part weatherman when he entered Sassy Image for dirt only in last month's Sweetest Chant Stakes. He wound up with a 4 1/2-length victory after the race was taken off the turf and switched to a sloppy main track.

Romans will attempt to pull off a similar trick Sunday when he again has Sassy Image in for dirt only in Gulfstream Park's $125,000 Coconut Grove, which is scheduled to be run at 1 1/16 miles on the turf.

NEW ORLEANS - It has been a subpar Fair Grounds meet for trainer Dallas Stewart, with two wins from 43 starts, but with some of his stable's best horses pointed toward a return, and his young colts and fillies progressing in their development, he isn't one to complain.

"We have a lot of young horses, and its been a little bit of a struggle, but that's the way this business is," Stewart said. "I'd like to have won more, but trainers will always say that."

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Trainer D. Wayne Lukas will hit the Triple Crown trail Monday at Oaklawn Park with one of the most credentialed colts he has had in several years. Dublin, who last summer took the Grade 1 Hopeful at Saratoga, is set to start his season in the Grade 3, $250,000 Southwest, the first of two local preps for the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Anybody with a good 3-year-old sprinter in the barn might want to take a long look at next Saturday's Grade 2 Hutcheson Stakes.

As of Friday, only Spectacular Bid winner A Little Warm, multiple Grade 2 winner D' Funnybone, Hear Ye Hear Ye, and City Trooper were confirmed as starters by the racing office for the seven-furlong fixture. A total of 41 horses were nominated for the race, and several of them are expected to run in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth on the same day.

Horses can be supplemented to the $150,000 Hutcheson for $6,000.

With so many of his 3-year-olds trying to get to the Kentucky Derby, trainer Bob Baffert is attempting to keep them apart. Because of that, he said on Friday that he is thinking of sending The Program to Fair Grounds for next Saturday's Grade 2, $300,000 Risen Star Stakes. The Program comes off a nose victory over stablemate Indian Firewater in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race here Feb. 3, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 77.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita officials on Friday said they are "discussing the possibility" of changing the conditions of the Grade 1, $250,000 Santa Margarita Invitational on March 13 from a handicap to a stakes race, a development that could result in Zenyatta carrying a much more favorable weight assignment.

Zenyatta is scheduled to make her first start of the year in the Santa Margarita and will use that as a prep for a potential meeting April 9 with Rachel Alexandra in the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park.

NEW ORLEANS - Following owner Jess Jackson's announcement Thursday evening that Rachel Alexandra will make her first start of 2010 in the March 13 New Orleans Ladies, the 2009 Horse of the Year worked five furlongs over a sloppy Fair Grounds track Friday morning.

NEW ORLEANS - Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra will make her first start of the year in the March 13 New Orleans Ladies in preparation for her scheduled race against Zenyatta in the April 9 Apple Blossom.

Owner Jess Jackson told Fair Grounds officials Thursday night that Rachel Alexandra would be pointed to the $200,000 New Orleans Ladies, created by the Fair Grounds this season in the hope that Rachel Alexandra would use the race to begin her 2010 campaign.