Average handle per race day was up 32.9 percent during the 38-day Turfway Park meet, which concluded on Saturday, according to Churchill Downs Inc., the owner of the track.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The 11-time stakes-winning New York-bred Mr. Buff is 0 for 6 in graded stakes. If he is ever going to win one, though, it seems Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Excelsior Stakes would be it. The race is run at 1 1/8 miles at Aqueduct, conditions under which Mr. Buff has won seven times with one second from eight career starts. Five of those victories have come in stakes – three runnings of the Jazil and two of the Alex M. Robb.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After finishing second to Greatest Honour in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth going 1 1/16 miles, Drain the Clock will turn back to one turn and seven furlongs in Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Bay Shore Stakes for 3-year-olds.

Prior to the Fountain of Youth, Drain the Clock had gone 4 for 4 in one-turn races, including a 6 1/4-length victory in the Grade 3 Swale.

Drain the Clock is part of a five-horse Bay Shore field that lost a significant player when Freedom Fighter was not entered due to a quarter crack, per trainer Bob Baffert.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The distance is perhaps farther than he wants to run and the competition is definitely steeper than he’s faced to date, but Chateau is just doing too well not to give Saturday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Carter Handicap a chance.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – By virtue of his victory in the Gotham Stakes four weeks ago, Weyburn earned enough qualifying points to secure his spot in the Kentucky Derby on May 1. His connections, however, do not necessarily have a case of Derby fever.

HOT SPRINGS., Ark. – Letruska, a South Florida-based runner who has been training at Oaklawn, is scheduled to work for the Grade 1, $1 million Apple Blossom this weekend, trainer Fausto Gutierrez said Tuesday. The Apple Blossom will be run April 17.

The work will be her first since she ran second by a head in the Grade 2 Azeri on March 13 at Oaklawn.

“It will be 21 days [since the Azeri],” Gutierrez said. “She gave a big effort. I want her fresh for this race.”

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Brad Cox leads all trainers in stakes wins at the Oaklawn Park meet with six, and he will be out to add to his total over the next three Saturdays, when the track puts on its Racing Festival of the South.

There are eight major stakes to be run over those dates, and the races are worth a cumulative $4.95 million. Cox has horses pointing to at least five of the stakes, led by two-time champion Monomoy Girl in the Grade 1, $1 million Apple Blossom Handicap.

The Racing Festival is a series Cox keys on for a number of different reasons.

Crowds at Santa Anita may be a little larger than expected starting next week. On Tuesday, the state announced less severe pandemic restrictions on outdoor sporting venues in Los Angeles County. As a result, Santa Anita will be allowed grandstand occupancy up to 33 percent starting Monday, compared to the current 20 percent, track officials said.

This Friday, general customers will be admitted at Santa Anita for the first time since March 8, 2020. Since September, the track has allowed owners to attend on days they have runners participating.

In 84 runnings of the Santa Anita Derby, only two jockeys have won the race in three consecutive years – Gary Stevens from 1993 to 1995, and Mike Smith in the last three seasons.

Smith, 55, looked poised for another win in Saturday’s Grade 1 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby on the two-time stakes winner Life Is Good until the colt was sidelined with an injury on March 20.

CYPRESS, Calif. - With victories in the $1.9 million Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity in December and Sunday’s $427,500 Los Alamitos Oaks, the brilliant filly Apollitical Patty is at the top of the 3-year-old Quarter Horse division in California.

She may not defend that role until the fall.

Apollitical Patty, owned by Julianna Hawn Holt of Texas and trained by Monty Arrossa, is a candidate for the All American Derby at Ruidoso Downs, which has trials in August and a final on Sept. 5.