HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Private Emblem, a stakes winner at Fair Grounds in his last start, and Clergy, who is undefeated in two career starts, meet at Oaklawn on Saturday in the $75,000 Southwest, which will be run in two divisions after 16 horses were entered in the one-mile race for 3-year-olds.
The only other time the Southwest, a stepping-stone to the Grade 2, $500,000 Arkansas Derby, was split into divisions was in 1972.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Trainer Tony Dutrow won't be playing his strongest hand when he goes for his fifth stakes win of the winter in New York on Saturday. That doesn't necessarily mean he won't leave Aqueduct without the money.
Initially, Dutrow had planned to enter both Totally Wild and Touch Love in Saturday's $75,000 Busher Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. However, Dutrow elected to enter only Totally Wild, winner of the Busanda Stakes last out. He will run the graded-stakes winning Touch Love Saturday against the boys in the Deputed Testamony Stakes at Laurel Park.
NEW ORLEANS - It's going on three years since owner John Franks and trainer Bill White sent a first-time starter named Kiss a Native out in a $32,000 maiden-claiming race.
He fit fairly well in that spot.
Kiss a Native won his career debut by 20 lengths and sent Franks and White on a whirlwind ride through the fall of 1999, winning an allowance race by 11 lengths and a $400,000 division of the Florida Stallion Stakes by five lengths. White was based at Calder Race Course, and the Breeders' Cup was being held that year across Miami at Gulfstream Park.
NEW ORLEANS - It has happened before. A turf horse comes to New Orleans for the winter and suddenly gets good. Tabianka in fact has never been better, and she has a legitimate chance to win the $150,000 Bayou Breeders' Cup Handicap on Saturday at Fair Grounds.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The unlikely success story of Freedom Crest could add another unfathomable chapter should he win Saturday's $1 million Santa Anita Handicap.
Freedom Crest already has been an overachiever. Taken from a maiden race for a claiming price of $32,000 in June 1999, Freedom Crest has gone on to earn more than $600,000. A 6-year-old gelding, he has won a pair of graded stakes, and scored a shocking 39-1 upset in last fall's Goodwood Breeders' Cup Handicap, when he beat Tiznow, who subsequently won the Breeders' Cup Classic.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The pressure is off in Saturday's $1 million Santa Anita Handicap for Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella.
He has two starters - Cagney and Kudos - but neither is well known nationally, neither will be favored, and there are questions surrounding their ability on dirt.
They are part of a wide-open Big Cap that could easily produce a longshot winner and give Mandella his third victory in the race.
The lack of pressure is evident in Mandella's mood as he prepares the duo.
"This is just fun," he said.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - When Pat Reynolds declined an invitation to take Peeping Tom to Dubai last year for the Golden Shaheen, a friend told him he passed on an opportunity of a lifetime.
Reynolds wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
Reynolds confirmed on Thursday that he will ship Peeping Tom to Dubai on March 10 to run in the $1 million Godolphin Mile at Nad al Sheba Racecourse on March 23. The Godolphin Mile is one of the supporting stakes on the Dubai World Cup card.
Touch Love, a graded stakes winner, and Magic Weisner, whose long-range plans could include the Preakness, lend spice to Saturday's $75,000 Deputed Testamony for Maryland-breds at Laurel Park.
Touch Love is the only filly among the seven 3-year-olds entered in the 1 1/16-mile Deputed Testamony.
Touch Love, a winner of three starts last year for trainer Tony Dutrow, including the Grade 2 Schuylerville at Saratoga, went to the sidelines after the Schuylerville with sore shins.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. - Tuesday's fifth-race victory by jockey Vernon Bush aboard Al Bark came against five rivals, but also over some physical and mental demons.
A five-time leading Suffolk Downs jockey in the early 1980's, Bush has always had tremendous talent and ability, but his career has been hampered by off-track difficulties.
His latest comeback at age 40, comes after seven months of adjusting his lifestyle around a new diet.
With weight problems the root cause for much of his past stress, Bush is optimistic about the future.
PHOENIX - The two times Kendrick Peak has raced she has been asked to leap over a tall building in a single bound.
She was asked to face winners in her debut; she passed with flying colors. In her second start she was asked to face stakes horses, off a layoff, routing for the first time. Again, no problem.