HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gemologist and Currency Swap, two of the more highly regarded members of the 2-year-old class of 2011, will make their belated 3-year-old debuts against one another in Friday’s $80,000 allowance feature at Gulfstream Park. The main event, which could ultimately serve as a Kentucky Derby prep for one or both horses, drew a field of only five 3-year-olds and will be decided at one mile.

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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Winchell and Asmussen families have been doing business together for three decades. Keith Asmussen gave such Winchell-owned runners as Tight Spot, Olympio, and Sea Cadet their first lessons in racing at his training center in Laredo, Texas. And his son, Steve Asmussen, would later train major stakes winners Summerly, Cuvee, and Pyro for the Winchells.

Trainer Steve Margolis’s quiet period early in 2012 came to an end the last two racing weeks at Fair Grounds. Last week alone, Margolis won three races in four days, among them the Allen Lacombe Memorial with Miz Ida, but it was second-time starter Cigar Street’s two-turn maiden win Saturday that created the greatest buzz.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – In the wake of Union Rags’ brilliant performance last month in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, it sounded like Gulfstream Park’s racing secretary, Dan Bork, would be hard pressed to assemble even a handful of 3-year-olds willing to take on the division leader, even for $1 million, in the Grade 1 Florida Derby on March 31. Now it appears the field size will not only be respectable but that Union Rags may not have any walk in the park in his final Kentucky Derby prep.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Creative Cause and Bodemeister, the one-two finishers in the San Felipe Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita, are expected to meet again in the Grade 1, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 7, but that race will not include Fed Biz, who on Monday was pulled from the Kentucky Derby trail by his trainer, Bob Baffert.

Fed Biz missed the San Felipe with a hind-end issue, and is still not moving to Baffert’s satisfaction. So, he is out of the running for the May 5 Kentucky Derby.

For many connections of lightly-raced 3-year-olds, the strains of “My Old Kentucky Home,” played during the Kentucky Derby post parade on the first Saturday in May, are nothing more than a siren song.

“Derby Fever” is contagious during the opening months of the racing season and many promising youngsters are rushed onto the Triple Crown trail before they are ready.

Fed Biz, who missed the San Felipe Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita with a hind-end issue, is still not traveling properly and will be pulled off the trail to the May 5 Kentucky Derby, his trainer, Bob Baffert, said Monday.

"I'm taking him off the Derby trail,” Baffert said from Ocala, Fla., where he is attending the 2-year-old sale. "I took him back to the track, and he's still not comfortable. I'm going to stop on him. He's got a hind-end issue. We can't find it, but something's nagging him. I'm going to give him some time off."

Currency Swap and Gemologist, two of the nation’s elite 2-year-olds from last year, are entered to make their first starts of the year on Friday at Gulfstream Park in a one-mile $80,000 allowance race, which attracted a field of five.

Currency Swap, the winner of the Hopeful Stakes, is in post 3, while Gemologist, the winner of the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, drew the rail.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -  Howe Great took another step towards following in the footsteps of stablemate and 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom  by registering a very professional one-length victory over fellow Derby prospect Dullahan in Sunday’s $150,000 Palm Beach Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

The Grade 3 Palm Beach was the fourth win in a row for Howe Great, a son of Hat Trick who captured the Kitten’s Joy seven weeks ago.  He is undefeated in three starts on grass but won his maiden on dirt last fall at Parx.