HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Todd Pletcher called it “a jump ball.” And he won. Rick Violette Jr. was less hospitable. “That’s a terrible call,” he said.

Both trainers were reacting on the track to a decision announced just seconds before by track announcer Larry Collmus, that stewards had disqualified the Violette-trained Upstart for interference, placing Pletcher’s Itsaknockout first, after an extremely odd running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

Even before the 2014 Breeders’ Cup, racing fans recognized that Chad Brown is a fast-rising star in the Thoroughbred business, one with a magic touch handling grass runners. But it was at Santa Anita last fall that Brown certified that he is in the top echelon of his profession. He did something that only three other trainers have ever accomplished, winning three races in a single Breeders’ Cup. Those victories – all on grass – helped boost his horses’ year-end purse winnings to $15.3 million, second-best in the nation behind Todd Pletcher’s all-powerful stable.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The manner in which each of the 11 horses in Sunday’s Grade 3, $300,000 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn has handled the race’s six-day delay surely has varied, but there is one constant for handicappers. All the entrants have been stabled on the grounds, negotiating disrupted training schedules brought about by a winter storm that forced the postponement of the Southwest last Monday.

NEW ORLEANS – When looking for the winner of the Risen Star Stakes on Saturday at Fair Grounds in Louisiana, casting an eye toward Florida has been a wise play in recent years.

Four of the last five Risen Star winners shipped here from Florida, and there are two candidates to extend that run.

Upstart
Flatter - Party Silks, by Touch Gold
(Bred in New York by Mrs. Gerald A. Nielsen; $130,000 purchase by Ralph M. Evans at 2013 Fasig-Tipton New York-bred preferred yearling sale)

If you’re looking for future classic winners, a good place to start is the Fountain of Youth Stakes, which was first run in 1945 and will be renewed Saturday at Gulfstream Park. The 1945 and 1947 editions of the race were for 2-year-olds in December, but all the other runnings – 61 of them, including three years when the race split – have been for 3-year-olds in February or March, and the roll of winners is a strong one.

I had the right idea in last Saturday’s Barbara Fritchie Handicap but the wrong horse. There was no pace, so if any horse got a clear lead, that horse was going to be very difficult to catch. Lady Sabelia, with the best set of recent Beyers, cleared the field easily, won convincingly, and got a 99 Beyer Speed Figure, equaling a career best. If you ever see a paceless race like that when there is no obvious speed horse and you are in the middle of a multi-race wager, consider using several of the speed horses and hope one of them gets clear.

Cinco Charlie has accomplished more than most young horses as a five-time stakes winner, and he will be out to keep the good times rolling Saturday at Sunland Park in the $100,000 Mine That Bird Derby. The 1 1/16-race is the final local stepping-stone to the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby on March 22.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Read the Footnotes might have been more brilliant, and Samraat maybe had more heart, but of the Kentucky Derby prospects Rick Violette Jr. has trained, none has been in a better position at this point than Upstart, who has both brilliance and heart and currently ranks as the best Kentucky Derby prospect on the East Coast.

WHO’S HOT
There was no change to the Derby Watch top 20 from a week ago in terms of the runners on the list or the Kentucky Derby future line produced by Mike Watchmaker, Daily Racing Form’s national handicapper, who last week made Dortmund the ante-post favorite at 6-1. American Pharoah sure looked good in his third breeze last weekend. Last year’s Eclipse Award winner is coming around fas