Girvin won the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 25 at Fair Grounds, and trainer Al Stall’s phone started ringing.

No, Stall doesn’t train Girvin; Joe Sharp does. But a colt whom Stall does train, Excitations, debuted in the same race as Girvin on Dec. 16. The pair dueled through the whole homestretch, with Girvin getting his head in front just before the finish. Girvin later won the Risen Star by two lengths.

“I kept telling people, ‘Sure, it might make him look good, but he still has to go out and do it,’ ” Stall said of Excitations.

The defection of McCraken from the Tampa Bay Derby has created a vacuum that appears likely to result in a sizable field for the annual marquee event at Tampa Bay Downs next Saturday.

Maybe 10 or more 3-year-olds could go postward in the Grade 2, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby, with Todd Pletcher now holding perhaps the strongest hand. Pletcher, who has won the Tampa Bay Derby four times – including three of the last four runnings – is expected to have two starters from the 14 horses he nominated.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – The curious odyssey of Classic Empire took another detour on Friday morning here at the Palm Meadows training center when he refused to break off for a potential workout, was taken off the track by jockey Julien Leparoux, and showed signs of favoring his back upon returning to trainer Mark Casse’s barn.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The oft-uttered phrase “he’s doing well” is basically viewed as trainer-speak. But consider this: El Areeb is racing this weekend because he is doing well, while other top 3-year-olds such as Classic Empire and McCraken are not racing this month because, quite simply, they aren’t doing as well.

Gulfstream Park gives new meaning to the term “big stakes day” on Saturday with nine stakes, eight of them graded, led by the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes. The Fountain of Youth is, of course, the local steppingstone to the Grade 1 Florida Derby, a major final Kentucky Derby prep that will be renewed April 1.

Elsewhere, Aqueduct offers the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes, the local prelude to the Wood Memorial on April 8. And Santa Anita has the Grade 3, $100,000 Santa Ysabel, which lured the brilliant 3-year-old filly Unique Bella.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The track and distance are the same but the potential race shape quite different for Irish War Cry, who will look to enhance his brightening Kentucky Derby hopes when he heads the field in the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes for 3-year-olds, the highlight of a blockbuster card on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

Churchill Downs Inc. would consider installing so-called historical racing machines at its Louisville, Ky., racetrack if a machine could be designed that was “competitive” with the more traditional slot machines offered at casinos in nearby Indiana, the company’s chief operating officer said Wednesday.

Speaking on a conference call to discuss the company’s 2016 financial results, COO Bill Mudd said Churchill was “working toward figuring out if we can make a better product” than the historical-racing machines already in use at three racetracks in Kentucky.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A field of 11 3-year-olds passed the Gulfstream Park entry box Wednesday afternoon for the 71st running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes, which will be run here Saturday as a key stepping-stone toward the 143rd Kentucky Derby.

To note that trainer Mike Maker is running stakes horses most everywhere Saturday would not be an overstatement. Besides starting horses at his principal winter base of Gulfstream Park, he has Keystoneforvictory and High Noon Rider racing in Barbados and five horses entered in Saturday evening’s $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Chad Brown has won Breeders’ Cup races and trained Eclipse Award winners, he’s won Grade 1 races on both dirt and turf, he got his first Eclipse Award as champion trainer this year, and he’s got a deep, powerful stable that takes up several barns here at the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida.