An Arkansas rule change that now gives Oaklawn Park the ability to write Kentucky Derby points races like the Arkansas Derby as Lasix-free events was approved Friday by a state legislative review committee. The panel also gave final approval to other rules and amendments recently passed by the Arkansas Racing Commission.

Byron Freeland, attorney for the commission, said the rules will go into effect before the start of the Oaklawn meet. The season opens Jan. 22.

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen is dominating the standings at Remington Park, which closes its meet Tuesday. He entered Friday night’s card with 72 wins, which is 46 more than second-leading trainer Austin Gustafson. Asmussen’s trainees have earned more than $1.3 million, which is tops this meet at Remington.

Heading into the Friday card, Asmussen led the owner standings by two wins over Danny Caldwell, 23-21.

Jockey Francisco Arrieta will be riding at the Oaklawn Park meet that opens Jan. 22, said Jay Fedor, who will represent the rider at the Hot Springs, Ark., track. Arrieta is currently riding at Fair Grounds and is due at Oaklawn sometime after Christmas.

“He’s a young rising star,” said Fedor, who through the years has brought a number of top riders to Oaklawn.

The ever-growing tentacles of the Brad Cox stable have now reached into South Florida, where Cox has set up shop at the Palm Meadows training center in Boynton Beach for the first time.

Cox was represented by his second winner of the 2020-21 championship meet at Gulfstream Park when a 2-year-old filly named Patty H was an easy gate-to-wire winner of a maiden-claiming race Thursday at the Hallandale Beach track. Cox has about 24 horses at Palm Meadows with assistant Dustin Dugas.

Richard Baltas had a career-best season in 2019, winning 13 graded stakes with a stable that earned $7.3 million. Those figures are safe for at least a year, although Baltas has an excellent chance to finish 2020 with a flourish.

With the start of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting on Dec. 26, Baltas plans to be active in several of the track’s nine stakes from opening day through Dec. 31. Baltas, 59, has 90 horses between Santa Anita and San Luis Rey Downs, a group that consists of a fair number of turf runners.

A winter storm that blew into New York overnight has forced Aqueduct to cancel Thursday’s card, the New York Racing Association announced. The Jamaica, N.Y., track is scheduled to resume racing on Friday.

The storm has brought snow and high winds to the area, and the National Weather Service has forecast snow accumulation could reach 9 to 12 inches, according to the press release from NYRA. A winter storm warning that includes calls for wind gusts of up to 50 mph and coastal flooding is in place through 1 p.m. Thursday.

The 3-year-old colt Maxfield, unraced since May, will make his first start following the second long layoff of his brief career in the $75,000 Tenacious Stakes, the last of 13 races Saturday at Fair Grounds.

Monomoy Girl, poised to win her second Eclipse Award, this time as champion older mare, has settled into her winter quarters at Fair Grounds and is scheduled to have her first work since winning the Nov. 7 Breeders’ Cup Distaff sometime during December. She will launch her 2021 season, if all goes well, in the Bayakoa Stakes on Feb. 15 at Oaklawn Park.

The Bayakoa is a prep, trainer Brad Cox said, for Monomoy Girl’s major spring goal, the $1 million Apple Blossom Handicap on April 17 at Oaklawn Park.

The Great One, a maiden after three races, was entered in Saturday’s Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity, a $200,000 race at 1 1/16 miles that will have a small field.

Owned by the partnership of Erik Johnson, Train Wreck Al Racing Stable, Niall Brennan, and Tom Fritz, The Great One, by Nyquist, has finished fourth in his last two starts. The Great One was beaten two lengths after setting the pace in a one-mile maiden special weight race on turf Nov. 29 at Del Mar, his most recent outing.

Three wins last Saturday, and a consistent span of results in the last two weeks, has left apprentice jockey Jessica Pyfer on the verge of the unexpected this weekend at Los Alamitos – positioned to contend for the riding title at the track’s three-week meeting.

Through Sunday, Pyfer, who began riding in September, was tied for second in the standings with seven wins, one less than leader Juan Hernandez and equal with Abel Cedillo, the leading rider at the Del Mar autumn session last month. The meeting ends Sunday.