With four weekends remaining in the Fonner Park season, Yuri Yaranga has taken control of the rider standings. Yaranga was excused from his remaining mounts during last Sunday's card because of the flu, halting his string of multiple win days.

Yaranga booted home four winners last Friday and added his third triple of the season Saturday to take a 39-27 lead over Beth Butler in the standings.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - E.T. Baird was not riding anywhere when the year started, did not join the Gulfstream riding colony until mid-February, and is uncertain where he's going when the meet ends here April 20.

But the jockey knows exactly where he will be on May 3 - at Churchill Downs to ride Recapturetheglory for trainer Louie Roussel in the Kentucky Derby.

ARCADIA, Calif. - By way of California and Idaho, Doppio will have a most unlikely homecoming when he starts in Saturday's $400,000 Commonwealth Breeders' Cup Stakes at Keeneland. A 6-year-old Kentucky-bred gelding, Doppio has overcome a severe tendon injury in 2005 that very nearly led to his retirement, and will make his stakes debut in the Grade 2 Commonwealth in search of the ninth win of his 16-race career.

The key to the comeback - a restful year spent in a snowy Idaho pasture that helped Doppio recover from the injury and return to racing.

CALGARY, Alberta – The competition runs deep here Friday in a six-furlong first-level allowance, with the edge going to West Coast invader Bold Knockout. A full field of 10 3-year-olds will run in the $17,400 race, the seventh on the card.

Hastings-based horses ruled the roost here last weekend, with several of them drawing off to win impressively at short prices. The Vancouver runners appear to have an edge on their local counterparts this early in the season.

Golden Gate Fields will offer nine stakes during its upcoming meeting, but the Grade 2 San Francisco Mile won't be one of them. The San Francisco Mile, Northern California's highest-graded stakes, won't be run this year because track officials are concerned it would conflict with the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile at Hollywood Park and, consequently, draw a field of less than Grade 2 quality and be downgraded, said Golden Gate Fields general manager Robert Hartman.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - If trainer Valerie Rhoden wanted to find a tough first test for the comebacking Funny Flyer, she certainly succeeded. The 6-year-old stakes-placed gelding makes his first start in 11 months in Friday's Bay Meadows feature, a $25,000 claimer at six furlongs.

He'll be meeting a pair of strong entrants sent out by trainer Billy Morey: Bradford, who has a win and a second in his two starts this year, and Shore Patrol, winner of four straight, including his last two here.

Following a 10th anniversary meet in 2007 in which rain put a damper on business, Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, reopens Thursday for its 11th season with officials hopeful for a brighter meet.

There is reason for guarded optimism, knowing it seems unlikely the track could be hit with as much precipitation as it was during its 2007 meet, when over 27 inches of rain fell, resulting in 60 races being moved from turf to dirt and contributing to the 527 scratches during the meeting.

At a time when many of his counterparts have long since retired from the racetrack, Sandburr is still going strong at the ripe old age of 9. Thursday night he will be among the favorites in the opening-night Premiere Stakes at Lone Star Park, a race he won last year as an 8-year-old, and if his better races from this year are any indication, he stands a strong chance to defend his title.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Hey Byrn will get one last opportunity to earn enough graded money to get into the Kentucky Derby field when he starts as the odds-on favorite in Saturday's Grade 3, $150,000 Holy Bull Stakes. The winner receives $90,000.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Gayego will have two significant questions to answer on Saturday when he starts as the probable favorite in the Grade 2, $1 million Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park. He must prove he can win at both two turns and on dirt as he ventures outside of Southern California's synthetic surfaces for the first time following a runner-up finish to Georgie Boy in the Grade 2 San Felipe last month at Santa Anita.