The Louisiana Premier Day card was missing a key player Saturday at Delta Downs in Underpressure, who twice has won the Championship and who is a past winner of the Prince Stakes. Underpressure was intended for the $150,000 Championship this year after running second in both the Gold Cup in October at Delta and the track’s allowance prep on Nov. 19. But bruised feet knocked him out of the race, trainer Chris Richard said Monday.

Grade 2 winner Cilla is poised to return to open company following her Saturday victory in the $100,000 Louisiana Premier Matron at Delta Downs.

Trainer Brett Brinkman said Monday that the multiple stakes winner has options at Oaklawn Park and Keeneland. She is based at Fair Grounds.

“We’re going to keep her sprinting, and our objective is to try to get a couple of more graded stakes wins or graded stakes-placings behind her if possible,” said Brinkman, who trains Cilla for Dale Ladner.

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas is excited about the future of Secret Oath and believes the recent winner of the Martha Washington Stakes at Oaklawn Park has the potential to be a “very, very special filly.”

Secret Oath picked up 10 points for the Kentucky Oaks for her 7 1/4-length win in the 1 1/16-mile race on Jan. 29. One start prior, she won a no-conditions allowance by 8 1/4 lengths at Oaklawn.

Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn., has reached an agreement to sell 40 acres of its property to a company that intends to build an amphitheater at the location, a project that would result in a reconfiguration of the track’s backside and the demolition and construction of barns.

John Dooley has been named track announcer at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racing and Casino, the racetrack formerly called Indiana Downs and, more recently, Indiana Grand.  

The position became available when longtime race-caller Bill Downes left the track after the 2021 racing season. Dooley is available because his usual summer place of employment, Arlington International Racecourse, won’t host a race meet in 2022, if ever again. Dooley is the longtime race commentator at Fair Grounds, where he currently is calling. 

Pity the Fair Grounds clocking crew.

An extended spell of cold, wet weather last week backed up workout schedules and led to a deluge of breezes after the Fair Grounds dirt track had dried Sunday and Monday. A total of 142 horses posted workouts Monday, which was nothing compared to Sunday, when 295 workers made the Fair Grounds tab. Track officials and local observers speculated that Sunday was the busiest work day in modern Fair Grounds history.

Call Me Midnight worked a half-mile in 50.20 seconds Feb. 5 at Fair Grounds, his first breeze since upsetting the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 22, but it’s far from certain this was a work toward the Feb. 19 Risen Star Stakes.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Giant Game was scheduled to undergo what trainer Dale Romans described as a minor throat procedure Tuesday after the colt, he said, “displaced his palate pretty bad” when a distant eighth Saturday in the Holy Bull at Gulfstream Park.

“It’s a very common procedure that’s done right in the horse’s stall,” Romans said. “Hopefully, this will correct whatever he’s got troubling him and we’ll have him back in training before the weekend.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Attendance for this year’s Belmont Stakes will be capped at 50,000, due in large part to reduced space in the backyard after the construction of UBS Arena, the New York Racing Association announced Monday. Belmont Day is June 11.

In 26 of 33 runnings of the Belmont from 1985-2019, the crowd was announced as more than 50,000. The last time the crowd was less than 50,000 was In 2013, when it was 47,567. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no fans were allowed for the 2020 running, and last year the crowd was capped at 11,000.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – If Geno wins only one dirt race, he won the right one – the $500,000 Great White Way division of the New York Stallion Series last Dec. 18.

Saturday, Geno will get a second chance to affirm his affinity for the dirt when he runs in the $100,000 Gander Stakes for New York-bred 3-year-olds going a mile.