Bettors who like playing gimmicks can often be placed in quandaries. Maybe they want to play a multirace wager, only to find some dreadful race cluttering the sequence. Or maybe a wager is appealing from a handicapping perspective, except the high takeout almost classifies as price gouging.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – It was here at Oaklawn Park one year ago that American Pharoah had his final tune-up before launching himself among the stars, becoming the 12th Triple Crown winner.

“It goes by so fast,” Jimmy Barnes, trainer Bob Baffert’s top assistant, said Thursday.

With only three weeks until the big day, the Kentucky Derby prep season ends Saturday with the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park. The Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap is the main supporting feature.

There is one other stakes for 3-year-olds Saturday – the Grade 3, $150,000 Lexington at Keeneland. But the Lexington does not offer enough points to get any of its entrants into the Kentucky Derby should the Derby draw 20 or more, which is expected.

Oaklawn Handicap

A year ago, the field for the Kentucky Derby shaped up as one of the best and deepest in many years. The five favorites were 13 for 13 as 3-year-olds, and all five Grade 1 preps were won by daylight in strong performances. Eight entrants had run Beyer Speed Figures of 100 or more.

This year, the story is entirely different.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – There will be a big change from the first Saturday of the Keeneland spring meet to the second: sundresses and sunglasses will replace overcoats and ski caps.

But this much won’t change: major stakes on an 11-race card, and this time, they’ll be run before what’s sure to be the largest crowd of the meet. Postcard-perfect spring weather is in the forecast, and the cabin fever that many fans harbored during a frigid opening weekend will be cut loose in all its glory.

Last Saturday’s Wood Memorial came up ridiculously slow, 1:52.92 for the 1 1/8 miles on the muddy track. Were the horses really that bad, or was there another explanation?

Kentucky Derby hopeful Mo Tom had a serious breeze early Wednesday at Churchill Downs, going a half-mile in 48.40 seconds, with gallop-out times of 1:01.40, 1:14.20, and 1:27.40, according to Churchill clocker John Nichols.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – With trainer D. Wayne Lukas, the glass is always at least half full, the sun is always shining, the next race offers another chance to win, the next crop of 2-year-olds is going to be the best one yet. He’s relentlessly positive, and even Wednesday morning, reflecting on the death of his only child, Jeff, three weeks ago, Lukas chose to look at the good, not dwell on the bad.

In the fall of 2014, Iowa businessman Dennis Albaugh and his son-in-law Jason Loutsch sat in the sale pavilion at Keeneland and selected nine yearlings. The nine youngsters came from a North American foal crop estimated at 23,509.

WHO’S HOT