Soldat put away To Honor and Serve turning for home and stamped himself as a major prospect for the 137th Kentucky Derby when speeding away to a clear-cut victory Saturday in the 65th running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Arch Traveler stamped himself a potential candidate for the Grade 1 Florida Derby after beating a strong field of first-level allowance horses, including a game runner-up Nacho Business, by three-quarters of a length going a mile and one-eighth for the first time in Saturday’s third race.

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It was a strange week. The Factor, the fastest 3-year-old in the West, is not expected to contest the Santa Anita Derby. Clubhouse Ride, a durable 11-start "veteran," is sidelined with an injury.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – When it comes to winning the Kentucky Derby, suddenly less has become more. Three of the last four winners, Street Sense in 2007, Big Brown in 2008, and Super Saver last year came into the Derby with only two preps as 3-year-olds under their belts. And if all goes according to plan, the two current favorites for the 2011 Derby, Uncle Mo and To Honor and Serve, will take the same route with only two starts on their itineraries between now and May 7.

The race Boys At Tosconova ran in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile would’ve been good enough for first money many years, but the Rick Dutrow-trained Boys At Tosconova ran into a monster from the Todd Pletcher barn, Uncle Mo. That same dynamic might be at work in the Hutcheson Stakes on Saturday, where the flashy Dutrow maiden winner Flashpoint goes against the Pletcher-trained Travelin Man, among the sharpest debut winners of the Gulfstream meet.

Special Kid appears to have stepped up his game since he began racing on dirt two races back, which will serve him well on Saturday when he makes his first start outside of Southern California in the $100,000 Borderland Derby at Sunland Park.

But there’s more to the story than a surface switch. Special Kid was gelded two starts ago, and since that point has begun to run to his potential, said his trainer, Doug O’Neill.

Mont Pelato’s bold American ambitions start on Saturday at the unlikely venue of Cagnes-sur-Mer, a racecourse that lies just a few miles from the ritzy seafront resort of Nice on the French Riviera where he will use the listed, $75,000 Prix Policeman at 1 1/4 miles as a trial for Keeneland’s Blue Grass Stakes. An undefeated Kentucky-bred son of Forest Danger, Mont Pelato already owns two wins going 1 3/16 miles on the Deauville Fibresand track, so the extra sixteenth on the Cagnes Fibersand strip should be right up his alley.

Things have had a way of coming full circle for Soldat and trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. Soldat begin his career on dirt, took a detour to turf, and now is being given a chance to make the Kentucky Derby, starting with the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

Bandbox, 2 for 2 in stakes while racing seven furlongs but idle for three months, makes his 3-year-old debut at his favorite distance in Saturday’s $75,000 Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel Park.