LOUISVILLE, Ky. – You can find three “Ls” in this river city’s name, two more in the name of the city’s storied racetrack, but the world’s most famous horse race at Churchill Downs here in Louisville, will not include a single “L” next to the names of horses racing in the 2021 Kentucky Derby.

“L” in past performance notation stands for “Lasix,” and the masters of the Derby, like much of North American racing, have taken a stand against a race-day medication that, until 2020, had become ubiquitous in the American Thoroughbred.

Bob Baffert held Beautiful Gift out of Friday’s Kentucky Oaks, but after watching her work Wednesday morning at Churchill Downs, he sort of wishes he hadn’t.

Beautiful Gift worked five furlongs in 59.80 seconds in company with the 3-year-old colt Hozier. Baffert, who caught the filly galloping out seven furlongs in 1:25, is planning to run Beautiful Gift in the Grade 2, $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan on May 14 at Pimlico.

Ava’s Grace, a longshot who figured to be part of the pace, will have to scratch from Friday’s $1.25 million Kentucky Oaks due to an unspecified injury, trainer Robertino Diodoro said Wednesday.

Diodoro said that while he didn’t know exactly what was wrong with Ava’s Grace, the area of concern is her right shoulder. Diodoro said Ava’s Grace was to undergo a nuclear scan to diagnose the issue.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of Canonero II posting arguably the most improbable upset in Derby history.

Canonero quickly became the darling of Venezuela, where the colt had trained prior to making an arduous journey to the U.S. to win the 1971 Derby as a member of the mutuel field. The $1,200 yearling purchase went on to win the Preakness but faded to fourth in the Belmont Stakes.

A veritable smorgasbord of wagering options is available to fans on both the Oaks and Derby Day programs, including several two-day wagers starting with the Friday card.

The two-day bets are:

◗ A $2 pick six comprising Grade 1 events: the La Troienne and Oaks on Friday, followed by the Derby City Distaff, Churchill Downs, Old Forester, and Derby on Saturday. (Last year’s pool, $452,357.)

◗ A 50-cent pick three linking the Oaks, Old Forester, and Derby. (Last year’s pool, $414,613.)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Everybody has their ups and downs, but c’mon – what Luis Saez has crammed into a relatively short time is mind-boggling.

Saez, 28, enjoys the kind of prosperous life that people his age can only dream of. He’s a wildly successful jockey, one who zoomed to the very top of his profession in just a few years. Since leaving his native Panama for the United States in 2009, his mounts have won 2,600 races and nearly $136 million in purse money. He has accumulated more wealth in a dozen years of riding racehorses than most people can hope to earn in a lifetime.

Fans who backed Search Results at 31-1 when the Kentucky Oaks Future Wager was offered March 5-7 are taking the strongest edge into the filly classic Friday, considering the Chad Brown-trained filly is the co-second-choice at 3-1 on the Churchill morning line.

Malathaat, the 5-2 program choice, closed at 7-1 in the Oaks futures, while Travel Column, the other second choice on the program, was 6-1 in the futures.

The road to this Kentucky Derby officially began on the undercard of the postponed 2020 Derby, last Sept. 5 at Churchill Downs. The Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes awarded 10 qualifying points to its winner, Sittin On Go. He’ll be racing this Saturday at Churchill, but in the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile, as he hasn’t won since the Iroquois.

Meanwhile, the colts who finished second and third behind him, Midnight Bourbon and Super Stock, both won graded races this year to earn their way into the Derby. 

Louisiana Derby winner Hot Rod Charlie is looking to further burnish the credentials of his late breeder, Edward Cox, Jr., in Saturday's Kentucky Derby. Some of the final standout horses bred by Cox, who died in March 2019 at age 83, include Hot Rod Charlie and his half-brother Mitole, a sprint champion.

Keith Asmussen has spent a lifetime in racing as the patriarch of one of the sport’s most accomplished families, but on Saturday the 79-year-old horseman will experience a whole new chapter in the game when Super Stock runs in the Kentucky Derby. Appropriately, Super Stock’s journey to the gate has gone through three generations of Asmussens.

Keith and 58-year-old son Cash Asmussen, the 1979 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice turned five-time champion jockey in France, gave Super Stock his earliest lessons at the family’s El Primero Training Center in Laredo, Texas.