ALBANY, Calif. - Russell Baze is getting eager to ride.
Baze, fourth on the all-time career list with 8,484 victories, finished second in the nation in wins in 2003, with 410. He has not ridden since suffering a displaced fracture of his right collarbone Nov. 30.
He will be examined Thursday, and, if he is cleared to ride, his agent, Ray Harris, will begin booking mounts for him Jan. 22.
"I just got cleared to begin jogging so that I can start to get my legs into shape," said Baze, 45.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Friday's card at Aqueduct was canceled after four races because of the extreme cold.
With the temperature hovering at 16 degrees and a wind chill of zero, the jockeys decided not to ride the five remaining races.
Jockey Mike Luzzi said, "It's not that it's dangerous [to ride]; it's just not possible. Shaun [Bridgmohan] has welts on his face from the dirt hitting him."
Richard Migliore, the meet's leading rider, said he couldn't feel his fingers because of the cold.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - When trainer Barclay Tagg shipped down to Gulfstream Park from his Palm Meadows base to school in the paddock last Sunday, it was a good indication that the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner was about ready to return to action.
And sure enough, four days later Tagg entered Funny Cide in a seven-furlong allowance on Saturday at Gulfstream.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Lori Testerman has been training racehorses in Maryland for 25 years, all of them under the national radar. Testerman did attract 15 minutes of regional fame when a speed demon named Disco Rico knocked out over a half-million dollars in the mid-Atlantic region in the late 1990's, but overall, she remains unknown to the vast majority of racing fans.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The setting will be Santa Anita, but it might as well be Longchamp. Saturday's $150,000 San Gorgonio Handicap for older female turf runners features five horses who have the same midpack style. There is absolutely no speed in the race. The 1 1/8-mile grass race figures to be run slow early, fast late, much like in Europe, and much to the probable liking of the expected heavy favorite, .
ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita has three stakes scheduled this weekend, but you could be excused for already looking forward to the following weekend, when the West's best 3-year-olds, including Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Action This Day, take their first tentative steps toward the Santa Anita Derby and Kentucky Derby in the Grade 2, $150,000 Santa Catalina Stakes on Jan. 17.
NEW ORLEANS - On Thursday, the trainer Josie Carroll was in Florida, heading back to her stable at Fair Grounds. That also is the path her horse has taken, but while Carroll knows what awaits her here, how Bachelor Blues will fare Saturday in the $60,000 Black Gold Handicap is uncertain.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - A cutback in distance, a return to the inner track, and a five-pound weight shift could help turn the tables on Queen's Triomphe when those two New York-bred mares meet again in Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 Affectionately Handicap at Aqueduct.
On Nov. 30, Queen's Triomphe upset Message Red at odds of 64-1 in the Montauk, run at nine furlongs over Aqueduct's main track. Queen's Triomphe got the jump on Message Red, who was conceding seven pounds to Queen's Triomphe.
