LEXINGTON, Ky. – Dayoutoftheoffice, still unraced since finishing second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies here last fall, will run in the seven-furlong Eight Belles on the April 30 Kentucky Oaks undercard, assuming she won’t have enough points to make the 14-horse lineup for the Oaks itself, trainer Tim Hamm said this week.

Dayoutoftheoffice, winner of the Grade 1 Frizette in October, has been breezing on a steady basis at Tampa Bay Downs but was not entered in either of the major Oaks preps this weekend, the Ashland or Fantasy.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Jon Court doesn’t know whether a jockey in his 60s has ever won a Grade 1 race, but if he becomes the first Saturday, he’ll revel in the accomplishment.

“I don’t know who it possibly could have been, if anybody,” Court said this week from his winter base at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas. “It’d sure be a great thing to become the first, I know that.”

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Wesley Ward isn’t looking back, even if something might be gaining on him. The easygoing trainer is aware that other horsemen would love to replicate the success he’s enjoyed at Keeneland, particularly with 2-year-olds, but he plans to just keep doing what he does best.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Despite sending out I Get It to register the most important victory of her career, a half-length decision over favored World Tour in Saturday’s Sanibel Island Stakes, trainer Ron Spatz had to say a sad good-bye to the big horse in his barn earlier this week. I Get It joined trainer Mark Casse’s stable, having been purchased privately by owner Gary Barber following her troubled fourth-place finish (placed third by disqualification) four weeks earlier in the Grade 3 Herecomesthebride.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Sports fans in the Bluegrass region got accustomed to being very spoiled at this time of year. Not only would the Keeneland spring meet bring an end to the misery of winter, but their beloved Kentucky Wildcats were mainstays in the NCAA Final Four, making four trips in five seasons from 2011 to 2015. The party was always on in early April.

The 2020-21 Aqueduct winter meet generated all-sources handle of $349,962,356, an increase of 17.2 percent over the 2019-20 winter meet, according to figures released Tuesday by the New York Racing Association.

Longtime Ontario owner-breeder Joan Agro passed away last Friday at 89.

Agro campaigned stakes-winning homebreds Sophia’s Prince and Michael’s Bad Boy at Woodbine.

Sophia’s Prince shattered the 6 1/2-furlong track record when taking the 2005 Shepperton Stakes, one of his 10 victories under the guidance of trainer John LeBlanc Jr. Michael’s Bad Boy won 14 races, most notably the 2009 Steady Growth Stakes for trainer Nick Gonzalez.

Agro was married for 68 years to Louis Agro, who shared her passion for horse racing.

Del Mar, which will play host to the Breeders’ Cup for the second time this November, received outstanding marks as one of the safest tracks in the country, according to the data released Monday by The Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database.

Charles Fipke, Fatal Bullet, and Formal Gold are among the 2021 Thoroughbred nominees to the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

A total of 18 people and horses, comprised of nine Thoroughbred and nine Standardbred candidates, have been selected to appear on the voting ballot. A 20-person election committee for each breed will determine the one individual to be inducted in each category, with the results to be announced April 13.

The three categories selected by the nominating committee for the 2021 Thoroughbred ballot are Builder, Male Horse, and Veteran Horse.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Keepmeinmind ran some of the best races of his career last year at Keeneland, and he will be returning to the track for the Grade 2, $800,000 Blue Grass, trainer Robertino Diodoro said Monday. The Kentucky Derby points race is Saturday.

Keepmeinmind is based at Oaklawn, where he also had been under consideration for the Arkansas Derby on April 10. Keepmeinmind worked here Saturday, going five-eighths in 1:00. Diodoro said shortly after the work that a decision had not yet been made on the horse’s next start, but he expected to have plans by Monday.