Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., has some new programs in place for its upcoming 57-day meet during the ongoing pandemic and one requires specific reservations to attend the races, said track president Lou Cella.

The meet opens Jan. 22.

Cella said the Arkansas Department of Health this week accepted a plan from Oaklawn that enables the track to conduct racing with limited spectators. Attendance to start the season will be limited to box-seat holders, members of the track’s jockey club, and those who secure reservations for the track’s various restaurants.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Mike Maker and trainer Todd Pletcher each entered three horses in Sunday’s $100,000 Rego Park Stakes for New York-bred 3-year-olds going 6 1/2 furlongs.

Maker entered Blue Gator, runner-up in the $100,000 Notebook Stakes here on Nov. 14; Lookin for Trouble, fifth in the Notebook; and Windy Nations, fourth in a division of the New York Stallion Series.

:: Want to get your Past Performances for free? Click to learn more.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Am Impazible, a 5-year-old New York-bred mare who has won four consecutive races, could make her stakes debut in the $100,000 Ladies Handicap here on Jan. 10, trainer Kelly Breen said.

Am Impazible came off a 10-month layoff on Dec. 18 to win an open-company first-level allowance race going a one-turn mile.

“It was a big performance,” Breen said. “I didn’t honestly think she was up to it, but she has a lot of heart. She came out of the race in good order. That’s why we’re thinking of trying a stakes.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The 3-year-old Weyburn, a good-looking maiden winner on the Dec. 5 Cigar Mile card at Aqueduct, returned to the work tab Thursday for the first time in three weeks, breezing a half-mile in 49.02 seconds over the Belmont Park training track.

It was Weyburn’s first work since Dec. 16. Shortly afterward he got sick, which knocked him out of consideration for a start in the $150,000 Jerome at Aqueduct on New Year’s Day. Now, Weyburn is a potential candidate for the $100,000 Jimmy Winkfield Stakes on Jan. 30, trainer Jimmy Jerkens said.

Juan Hernandez has developed a simple formula to secure the position of leading rider in the first weeks of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting – win two races a day.

Through Sunday, Santa Anita has had six days of racing beginning on Dec. 26, and Hernandez has doubled on each program – no more and no fewer.

The success is a 100 percent improvement from pre-meet goals set by Hernandez and his agent, Craig O’Brian.

“My agent told me, ‘Juan, win one a day and we should be okay,’ ” Hernandez recalled on Thursday.

Q B One was among the most talked about 2-year-olds in California last summer, for good reason. The unraced colt is the first foal from three-time champion Beholder, he was sired by Uncle Mo, and early workouts indicated Q B One was special. But after a half-mile work in late July at Del Mar, trainer Richard Mandella pulled the plug.

:: Enhance your handicapping with DRF’s Santa Anita Clocker Report

Independence Hall would not have defeated Charlatan in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, but the lackluster fifth by Independence Hall remains a mystery. Now two weeks later, trainer Michael McCarthy is still scratching his head.

“I have no excuse for him, really, other than the maybe that racetrack wasn’t to his liking,” McCarthy said this week. “That’s the only thing I can come up with.”

Whitney “Zeke” Zeringue might have been best known in the racing world for owning the New Orleans-area farm where jockey Joe Talamo got his start galloping horses at age 14.

Outside racing, Zeringue went in an entirely different direction. For 11 years, until 1997, he was president of Halliburton Energy Services, the well known company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Zeringue, who went to work for Halliburton in 1972 as a petroleum engineer, went on to other executive positions in the energy sector before retiring in 2020.

Now, he trains a string of horses.

Trainer Hugh Robertson turns 70 in February and had a stroke in March 2019. When COVID-19 hit last spring, shutting down Fair Grounds before the 2019-20 meet could be concluded, Robertson was taking no chances. Robertson went from New Orleans back to his old home in Nebraska, and there he stayed until this fall.

“I just stayed in Nebraska for six months after Arlington didn’t open until so late,” Robertson said. “Covid messed up our year for sure.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – When it comes to stakes horses, Rudy Rodriguez typically has his most success in the winter. In Water White, Rodriguez believes he has a horse for all seasons.

Last March, Water White won the $250,000 Busher Invitational at Aqueduct before finishing a well-beaten third behind Gamine in the Grade 1 Acorn at Belmont in June. Unraced since, Water White had her first workout in six months Sunday, breezing three furlongs in 36.70 seconds over the Belmont Park training track.