A stable truly has depth when a morning-line favorite is scratched and another runner from the barn assumes the role of favorite and succeeds hours later.

Say the Word was withdrawn from Saturday’s Grade 3 San Luis Rey Stakes after sustaining a cut in a stall incident on race morning, trainer Phil D’Amato said. That afternoon, Acclimate was sent off favored, took his usual position at the front, and held off a sustained threat from Dicey Mo Chara to win his first stakes since June.

Acclimate is an 8-year-old gelding who is not acting his age.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Bo Hirsch and trainer Michael McCarthy have decisions to make with Ce Ce, the reigning champion female sprinter who won around two turns Saturday in the Grade 2, $350,000 Azeri at Oaklawn Park.  

The Azeri serves as the final local steppingstone to the Grade 1, $1 million Apple Blossom on April 23 at Oaklawn. Ce Ce won the race in 2020, and again will be considered for the 1 1/16-mile handicap, McCarthy said Sunday.  

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown has tweaked his plans for some of his bounty of stakes horses, including his 3-year-olds who are or were pointing to Kentucky Derby points-scoring races.

Brown said Friday that he plans to scratch Money Supply from Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Tampa Bay Derby. Brown said the combination of post 11 and an expected wet track given an ominous forecast are the reasons to scratch. In his only start, Money Supply won a six-furlong race at Tampa on Feb. 12.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The New York stewards took no action against jockey Jose Lezcano for his peculiar ride aboard Foxtail in Sunday’s first race at Aqueduct.

Lezcano was aboard Foxtail, the 2-1 second choice in the race. Lezcano seemed to have a handful of horse as he cruised up to the leaders three wide at the quarter pole. Lezcano did not ask his horse for run, but kept looking to his inside, specifically at That Is Key, who Foxtail was at least a length in front of.

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.