INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Hollywood Park is offering a $500,000 guaranteed pick six pool on Saturday's California Gold Rush program for statebreds. To sort through the pick six, bettors must decipher four stakes worth $150,000 to $250,000 as well as lucrative races for allowance-class horses and maidens.

Gold Rush Day offers two sorts of races: six stakes worth $150,000 or more, and four other races for up-and-coming horses - two $60,000 maiden races and two $70,000 allowance races. The lesser races annually are among the largest fields of the day, and this year is no exception.

Northlands Park has scheduled 40 stakes races totaling $2.37 million for the 2009 meet, which opens on May 1. The total amount of stakes money is up by $200,000 from 2008, due to Northlands picking up six stakes from Stampede Park, which isn't holding a meet this year. Offsetting the additional stakes races are $25,000 purse cuts to four races.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - These are some pretty eventful times for race-caller Mark Johnson.

His mother died in October following a lengthy illness. He married his sweetheart, Katherine, on a Caribbean island in January. He called the world-renowned Grand National steeplechase in his native England in early April. A week or so ago, he flew from England to America for a lengthy stay.

And, oh yes, a week from Saturday, he will call his first Kentucky Derby for an ontrack crowd of some 150,000 screaming fans.

It was in late October of last year that Triumphant Flight was taken out of training, less than a month after winning his first stakes. Trainer Eric Kruljac detected heat in the colt's knee, ending any thoughts of a late-season stakes for the California-bred 2-year-old.

While it may have seemed like a bad time for a highly promising juvenile to leave the track, the forced time off may turn out to be the best thing that happened to Triumphant Flight.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - There has never been a time quite like the present for Pete Parrella, the owner of Legacy Ranch in Clements, Calif.

The ranch has two young stallions on its roster - Our New Recruit, whose oldest foals are 2-year-olds this year, and Cindago, whose oldest foals are yearlings. If one of those has early success, Legacy could be a destination spot for mare owners in coming years.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Trainer Cindy Krasner will kick things into high gear when she sends out Krazy Koffee in the 6 1/2-furlong George Royal Stakes next Saturday.

Krazy Koffee, who was the horse of the year in British Columbia last year, hasn't raced since he finished a neck behind Rosberg in the 1 3/8-mile Grade 3 Premiers on Oct. 12. Before his narrow loss, Krazy Koffee had reeled off five straight wins, including an impressive score in the Grade 3 B.C. Derby.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Add another graded stakes-winning mare to Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard's barn.

The Sheppard-trained Winter View, making her first start in stakes company since being brought to the United States from France in early 2008, unleashed a furious stretch kick to win the Grade 3, $150,000 Bewitch Stakes by two lengths before a crowd of 12,643 at Keeneland Thursday.

Her victory followed graded wins earlier in the meet for Sheppard by champion Forever Together in the Jenny Wiley and Informed Decision in the Vinery Madison.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Bear's Rocket and Shafted, both of whom ran well when facing some Kentucky Derby-bound opponents in the United States this winter, will cross swords here in Saturday's 1 1/16-mile Wando.

Prairie Meadows Racetrack got its start 20 years ago, opening its doors as Iowa's first and only racetrack in 1989. Two years later, the track filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, forcing a dark year in 1992 before racing returned the following season. But 1995 saw the introduction of 1,100 slot machines that generated revenue racing never came close to approaching, turning Prairie into a cash cow for the state of Iowa and the county of Polk.

Following a contentious 2008 racing season that everyone at Calder would just as soon forget, optimism will be running high on all fronts when the long 2009-2010 Calder season opens Friday.

A disagreement over the purse contract between track management and the Florida division of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association prevented Calder from sending its simulcast signal out of state for most of the 2008 campaign. The resulting decline in handle led to substantial purse cuts and even some fairly significant cutbacks in the stakes schedule.