ARCADIA, Calif. - One way or another, Eric Guillot is determined to take a 3-year-old on the Kentucky Derby trail this spring.
This Saturday, Guillot starts Salute the Sarge in the $75,000 San Miguel Stakes over six furlongs at Santa Anita. A win in that race could lead to a start in the $325,000 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland on April 19, the last major prep for the Kentucky Derby on May 3.
Steve Asmussen, the nation's leading trainer in wins and earnings, was the leading trainer at the Fair Grounds meet this year, finishing with 86 wins for the 81-day meet that ended Sunday.
Asmussen has been the leading trainer at Fair Grounds for seven of the past eight meets. Asmussen is also the trainer of Pyro, who won the Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds this year and is a leading candidate for the Kentucky Derby.
James Theriot won the riding title with 94 wins, 13 more than Shaun Bridgmohan. It was Theriot's first riding title at the track.
Jockey Justin Shepherd is coming off perhaps the best year of his career, and he has kept his momentum going into the Will Rogers Downs meet in Claremore, Okla. Shepherd had a triple at the track Tuesday and earlier this month went 5 for 5 with his mounts on a card.
Shepherd leads the standings at Will Rogers with 21 wins from 95 starts. He also leads all riders in mount earnings at the meet, with $256,727.
Shepherd's season comes on the heels of a 2007 in which he won 106 races and a career-best $2,417,115 in mount earnings.
Trainer John Locke, who leads the standings at Sam Houston Race Park, is closing in on career win 1,000. As of Tuesday, he had won 991 races. Locke will have five chances to add to his total Friday, with four horses in at Sam Houston Race Park and one starter at Oaklawn Park.
Locke has divisions of his stable at both tracks. He has won 44 races from 221 starters this meet at Sam Houston, and his starters at the track have earned $473,673. Last year was a banner one for Locke, who won 109 races and had career-best stable earnings of $1.5 million.
It doesn't seem to matter who's riding for trainer Murray Rojas these days at Penn National.
Rojas went 6 for 16 last week to pass Scott Lake and move to the top of the meet's trainer standings with 17 victories from 82 starters through March 22.
Four different jockeys rode winners for Rojas, including two apiece by Justin Kravets and 10-pound apprentice Manuel Chaves.
Fasig-Tipton Texas has cataloged 303 horses to its 2-year-olds in training sale, which will be held in the sales pavilion in the Lone Star Park stable area on Tuesday, April 1, beginning at 10 a.m.
The under-tack show is set for Sunday, March 30. The workouts will begin at 10 a.m. at Lone Star.
A broad base of stallions are represented by offspring, among them Dixie Union, Empire Maker, and Forestry.
Maryland-based jockeys Sheldon Russell and Oliver Castillo will each be sidelined four to six months as the result of injuries sustained in separate spills last Saturday at Laurel Park.
Russell, a 20-year-old apprentice who was tied for sixth at the meet with 21 winners from 90 mounts, fractured two vertebrae in his back when his mount, Positive Note, broke down on the backstretch of the fifth race and landed on him. Russell missed four months with a similar injury sustained last October.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. The undefeated and untested Big Brown drew the outside post in a field of 12 3-year-olds entered Wednesday for Saturdays $1 million Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. No horse has ever won a race going 1 1/8 miles at Gulfstream from post 11 or 12 since the racetrack was reconfigured and lengthened to 1 1/8 miles in 2005.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Of the 182 horses that have been claimed in 40 days of racing this meet at Oaklawn, 23 were taken by Jan Haynes. She leads all owners in claims, and also has a clear lead atop the owner standings as she pursues her first title at Oaklawn.
Haynes's first leading owner title came last fall at Louisiana Downs. As the year came to an end, a number of her horses were claimed. Haynes has gone to work replacing her stock, and following Oaklawn will divide her 30-plus horse operation between Louisiana Downs and Lone Star Park.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Bamaha Breeze, who ran his record to 4-0 with a victory in an optional-claiming sprint last Friday, may be heading for a stakes in his next race. In fact, trainer Steve Miyadi said he may stretch him out to 1o1/8 miles for the $250,000 Snow Chief for California-breds on the Gold Rush Day card April 27 at Hollywood Park.
Miyadi said the challenge will be to prepare Bamaha Breeze to run farther than six furlongs for the first time.