NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Racing returns to northern Ohio on Thursday when Thistledown begins its 136-day season, which continues through Nov. 19.

This will be the shortest live season at Thistledown since the 7&7 - the practice of alternating races and sharing a simulcast signal with another Ohio track - was introduced in 1993. Thistledown raced 187 days from 1993 through 2005. Last year, as part of an effort to reduce racing dates in Ohio, Thistledown cut back to a 156-day meet.

CHICAGO - Sometimes the Illinois Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Foundation Sales Graduate Stakes has more words in its name than horses in the race. But this year both the male and female divisions of the race drew good numbers, although the field of 3-year-old fillies is decidedly weaker than that of 3-year-old colts and geldings.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The winter did not start off all that well for Street Sense and trainer Carl Nafzger. When they first arrived at the Palm Meadows training facility in Florida, Nafzger sensed his colt needed a little more time to recover from his championship 2-year-old campaign. He backed off on Street Sense's training, not wanting to force the issue. Since picking up the pace, though, Street Sense has consistently moved forward.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Arguably the leading turf horses in both the male and female divisions in North America this year will be in action this weekend at Keeneland in terrific lead-ins to the track's premier event, the Blue Grass Stakes.

Showing Up, the Lael Stables colt who dominated fellow 3-year-old turf rivals last year, will make his seasonal debut Friday in the Grade 2 Maker's Mark Mile, while Wait a While will make her second start of the year in the Grade 2 Jenny Wiley Stakes on the Blue Grass undercard Saturday.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Round Pond, the winner of the Breeders' Cup Distaff in November, came out of her third-place finish in the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park on Saturday with a slab fracture to her left knee and has been retired, her owner, Rick Porter, said on Monday.

The fracture is non-displaced, said Porter.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer John Kimmel spent his Easter Sunday at Gulfstream Park. A week earlier, Kimmel was halfway around the world, sending out Premium Tap to a game second-place finish behind Horse of the Year Invasor in the Dubai World Cup.

Kimmel will have to wait another seven weeks before reuniting with Premium Tap, who must spend 60 days in quarantine in Dubai before returning to the U.S., which is scheduled for May 29.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Last Friday, Val Rhoden won her first race as a trainer in more than a decade when R Spring Affair won a $12,500 claiming sprint on the Bay Meadows turf.

Rhoden, 55, started in the business working with her mother, Doris Merrill, at tracks in the Northwest. Starting in the mid-1980's, she was the primary Northern California trainer for Rancho San Miguel.

She retired from training and went to work in operations at Northern California tracks for 13 years, building seniority and a pension. But, she said, "I knew I had to get back to horses in some way."

LEXINGTON, Ky. - In virtually any other year, a victory in the Ashland Stakes automatically means a berth in the Kentucky Oaks. In fact, not since Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey bypassed the Oaks with Inside Information in 1994 has the Ashland winner missed the Oaks.

All-sources handle on Santa Anita races on Saturday, Santa Anita Derby Day, was $24,335,478, the fourth-highest in the history of the day and a 14.2 percent increase over the 2006 figure of $21.4 million.

Saturday's ontrack handle of $5,667,632, though, was down from the 2006 ontrack handle of $6,070,191.

The track's president, Ron Charles, said a pick six carryover into the 2006 Santa Anita Derby program made the 2006 ontrack handle difficult to surpass.

Average daily handle from all sources was down slightly at the winter-spring meet that ended Thursday at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., although average ontrack handle was up versus comparable figures from the 2006 meet.

The average handle on live Turfway races was $2,777,031, down 3.4 percent from 2006, but average ontrack handle of $147,050 was up 12.3 percent.