INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Life Is Sweet will skip Saturday's $150,000 Bayakoa Handicap at Hollywood Park and may start in the $150,000 San Gorgonio Handicap at Santa Anita on Jan. 2, trainer John Shrireffs said Wednesday.

The winner of the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic at Santa Anita on Nov. 6, Life Is Sweet was the 124-pound highweight for the Bayakoa, which is run over 1 1/16 miles on the main track. Shirreffs and owner Marty Wygod considered the Bayakoa as recently as last weekend but have opted to point for a 2010 campaign.

Shining First Dash caught owner Gary Muller and trainer Dennis Ekins's attention in the spring when the 2-year-old Quarter Horse colt was approaching his first start at Los Alamitos.

The public was not as impressed. Shining First Dash was 51-1 for his debut on May 2, a price that was fine with Muller, especially when a half-length win produced a $104 mutuel.

Shining First Dash has since gone on to qualify for three futurities - and finished second in two of them, the $426,000 Governor's Cup Futurity and the $1.27 million Golden State Million.

Zenyatta made the final start of her career at Santa Anita, and now will make her final public appearance at Santa Anita. She will parade at Santa Anita on opening day, Dec. 26, which is always one of the best attended days on the Southern California racing calendar.

Zenyatta, owned by Jerry and Ann Moss and trained by John Shirreffs, completed a perfect 14-race career with a victory last month in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meeting. She was honored at Hollywood Park, where she is stabled, between races last Sunday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Reade Baker had a career year in 2008, winning eight stakes races and finishing second in the Breeders' Cup Sprint with Fatal Bullet.

And while Baker won't be matching those numbers this season, he is far from disappointed with his outfit's performance.

"I think it's been a good year," said Baker. "I had almost as good a year as last year in Canada, but I didn't have nearly as good a year in the States."

The Arkansas Racing Commission on Tuesday approved Oaklawn Park's request to change its longstanding minimum payout scale.

In the event of a minus pool the minimum payout on a $2 wager will now be $2.10 for the meet that opens Jan. 15. It had been $2.20, which made Arkansas one of the last states with that high of a minimum.

The new minimum payout is more in line with other jurisdictions that take Oaklawn's simulcast signal, said Byron Freeland, an attorney for the commission. As a result, it makes for cleaner simulcast contracts.

WinStar Farm will be seeking its third 2-year-old graded stakes win in three weeks on Friday night, when Rule starts as the possible favorite in the Grade 3, $750,000 Delta Jackpot at Delta Downs.

The 1 1/16-mile race will share a program with the Grade 3, $500,000 Delta Princess for 2-year-old fillies at a mile. The races are two of six stakes on a card worth more than $1.6 million.

Macho Again finished ninth in the Clark Handicap on Friday, a disappointing conclusion to an occasionally excellent 2009 campaign. But Macho Again is back at Fair Grounds, no worse for wear, according to trainer Dallas Stewart, and ready to crank up for another go of things in 2010.

"He came back sound, and he's eating well," Stewart said.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Diamondrella, a two-time Grade 1 winner this year who was third in the Matriarch Stakes at Hollywood Park last Saturday, will remain in California in 2010, trainer Gary Stevens said.

Owned by IEAH Stables, Diamondrella, 5, has won 8 of 19 starts and $820,576.

"The plan is that she stays in training," Stevens said.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Jockey Eurico Rosa da Silva already had galloped and worked several horses here at Woodbine the other morning and now was on his way to tae kwon do class.

"It's helped me, mentally and physically," said da Silva, of the Korean martial arts discipline which he has been studying for 4 1/2 years. "It's always challenging; there's always something to work on."

Da Silva has held his first-degree black belt in tae kwon do for the past 2 1/2 years.

MIAMI - Monday's revelation that a horse stabled at Calder Race Course had tested positive for the equine herpesvirus and the subsequent quarantine of the barn area will have both an immediate and long-term impact on the track's racing programs.