OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Speaker’s Corner and Olympiad, both trained by Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, have combined to win all four of their starts to begin their 4-year-old campaigns, three in graded stakes.

Maybe you saw Clairiere’s robust-looking Fair Grounds work pattern and wondered where she’d make the first start of her 4-year-old season. Now, you have an answer.

Clairiere is one of seven older fillies and mares entered in the seventh race Wednesday at Fair Grounds. Well done to the track’s racing office making this high-end allowance race go (Clairiere qualifies under the nonwinners-of-four condition) and bringing an elite talent to a weekday racing program.

James Graham rode four winners on the Thursday card at Fair Grounds, opening an eight-win lead, 50-42, over Colby Hernandez in the jockey standings. Reylu Gutierrez is having a strong first season at Fair Grounds with 47 winners through Thursday. Deshawn Parker, with 32 wins, and Emanuel Nieves, who’s ridden 28 winners, also are having notably successful first seasons based in New Orleans.

But let’s talk for a minute about the 10th leading rider at Fair Grounds, Jareth Loveberry.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Victor Espinoza has been a top-level jockey for so long in Southern California that he spans the generations between the famous riders from the 1990s and early 2000s to the much younger men and women who surround him today.

Early in his career, Espinoza, 49, rode with such greats as Eddie Delahoussaye, Julie Krone, Chris McCarron, Laffit Pincay Jr., Alex Solis, and Gary Stevens, to name a few from that era, and now rides with the likes of Flavien Prat, Abel Cedillo, Juan Hernandez, and Umberto Rispoli.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainers Ray Handal and Chad Summers will be looking at stakes at Turfway Park after having to scratch horses out of stakes races they were entered in Tuesday at Parx due to a case of equine herpesvirus at that track.

Parx was placed under quarantine, and horses who raced there this week or who are stabled there are not permitted to leave the grounds until the quarantine is lifted.

Colonial Downs will host 24 stakes races worth about $3.5 million during its 27-day 2022 racing season, the Virigina racino announced Wednesday.  

This year’s stakes schedule is worth $850,000 more than the stakes races run during the 2021 racing season. The meet highlight is the $300,000 Virginia Derby on Sept. 6. Twenty of the meet’s stakes races will be contested on turf, a fixture of the Colonial program. 

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The Gulfstream Park stewards announced Wednesday that jockey Paco Lopez has been suspended 14 racing days for “careless riding” aboard In Due Time during Saturday’s Fountain of Youth Stakes. In Due Time finished second behind Simplification in the Grade 2 race.

The stewards said they’ve also placed Lopez on probation through the remainder of the Championship Meet, which ends on April 3.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Imprimis competed in both the 2019 and 2020 editions of the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, and will try to make it again at the age of 8. Imprimis is likely to make his 2022 debut a week from Saturday in the $100,000 Silks Run here, said trainer Joe Orseno.

Imprimis underwent a second throat surgery after closing out his 2021 campaign with a 10th-place finish in the Grade 3 Turf Sprint at Kentucky Downs on Sept. 11. Imprimis has nine wins in 21 career starts with earnings in excess of $883,000.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – On March 9, 2019 trainer Ben Colebrook ran a 20-1 shot named Knicks Go in the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct. He finished seventh of eight.

On Wednesday – March 9, 2022 – Colebrook entered just his second horse at Aqueduct since then when he put Club Car in Saturday’s $100,000 Correction Stakes. She won’t be 20-1, nor will she likely be sent to another trainer and become Horse of the Year a la Knicks Go.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Helium has not exactly distinguished himself as a standout since upsetting the 2021 Tampa Bay Derby at 15-1, although the 4-year-old son of Ironicus might have a new outlook after being gelded since his latest start. He’s had three recent works at trainer Mark Casse’s training center in Ocala, including a half-mile breeze Wednesday in 48.20 seconds.

“We’re probably looking at an allowance race at Keeneland next month,” Casse said.