ARCADIA, Calif. - The Usual Q.T. extended his winning streak to six races in Saturday's $100,000 at Santa Anita, his third straight win in a graded stakes.

Trainer Jim Cassidy considered Saturday's win to be a little more than a trial. Ridden by Victor Espinoza, The Usual Q.T. ($2.80) was fourth, racing about 3 1/2 lengths behind pacesetter Quoted on the backstretch, rallied four wide on the turn, and won by a length over 16-1 Gallant Son. Massone finished third in the field of nine 3-year-olds.

OLDSMAR, Fla. - Overcoming trouble on the turn, Gesu rallied along the inside through the final furlong and came away with a hard-earned half-length upset victory in the $75,000 Inaugural Stakes on Saturday before 4,737 fans at Tampa Bay Downs.

Gesu was running comfortably in sixth, just a few lengths off the pace moving into the turn of the Inaugural, when jockey Paco Lopez was forced to take up sharply in tight quarters between rivals as the field approached the quarter pole. They dropped back to next to last in the field of 10 juveniles.

MIAMI - Truly amazing!

That's how trainer Jonathan Sheppard described Cloudy's Knight after the long-winded 9-year-old gelding capped off his brief 2009 campaign with a 1 1/4-length victory over Spice Route in Saturday's $150,000 at Calder.

Presious Passion, making his first start since finishing a game second in the Breeders' Cup Turf, failed in his attempt to win the Grade 2 McKnight for the third consecutive year. He finished a tiring fifth after being hard pressed early as the 3-5 favorite.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita marked the beginning of its 75th anniversary season on Saturday, when the gorgeous track opened for its long winter meet. And the track pulled out all the stops for a spectacular opening day, celebrating greats of the past and present, in addition to some of the traditions that make opening day a must-do for Southern California racing fans.

MIAMI - Motovato overcame traffic problems on a couple of occasions through the stretch before running down longshot Dream Maestro to register a well-deserved neck victory in Saturday's at Calder. Biker Boy, the 3-5 favorite, finished a tiring fifth after stalking the pace into the stretch.

The seven-furlong Kenny Noe lost some of its luster when This Ones for Phil, the starting highweight at 120 pounds, was one of three horses scratched out of the Grade 3 dash earlier in the day.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Crown of Thorns, the runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Sprint last month, has battled a severe throat ulcer in recent weeks that threatens his participation in the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, trainer Richard Mandella said on Saturday.

The ulcer was detected after the BC Sprint, in which Crown of Thorns finished a nose behind race winner Dancing in Silks.

"If I had seen it before the race, I would not have run him," Mandella said.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Buddy's Saint, considered among the top 3-year-old prospects in the country when the 2010 season begins next week, made his first appearance over the racetrack at Gulfstream Park on Saturday after arriving in south Florida from New York last Wednesday.

In his last 13 starts dating back to July 2008, Digger made just one appearance in a stakes, finishing a distant fifth, and ran for a claiming tag six times. But he apparently relished the wet-fast surface he caught on Aqueduct's inner track Saturday afternoon.

Sent to the front by jockey Anna Napravnik, the 5-year-old Digger opened up by 1 1/2 lengths, then had just enough to hold off 3-5 favorite Pashito the Che by a nose to capture the

ARCADIA, Calif. - The comeback boys are reunited on Sunday.

After taking five weeks off to have a bothersome finger surgically repaired, jockey Tyler Baze was scheduled to return to action on Saturday at Santa Anita. On Sunday, he hooks up anew with the comebacking Lava Man, who is scheduled to make his first start since July 2008 in the Grade 2, $150,000 San Gabriel Handicap.

Some 18 months ago, Fabio Arguello Jr. was helping his brother in the painting business in Louisville, Ky.

It was a humbling experience and a far cry from the days of the early 1990s, when Arguello was a top jockey in Kentucky, earning thousands of dollars a week.

"My brother had cancer, and I wasn't getting very many mounts anyway," Arguello said. "In the back of my mind, though, I knew I wanted to get back to riding and what I love."