HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The 7-year-old sprinter Smart Spree has had a remarkable season at Oaklawn Park, and his trainer Norm McKnight hasn’t done badly himself. On Saturday, Smart Spree will try to put the icing on McKnight’s first Oaklawn season as a top contender in the Grade 3, $400,000 Count Fleet Handicap.

McKnight topped Mark Casse in the Woodbine trainer standings last year after finishing second to him in 2016. He brought 24 horses to Oaklawn this winter, and coming into the Thursday card was seventh in the standings with a 16-for-75 record and a 21 percent win average.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fl. – Trainer Rick Violette toyed at one point with the idea of running his Grade 1 winner Diversify in the $16 million Pegasus World Cup. But when that window of opportunity closed earlier this winter, Violette decided on taking another path with the speedy New York-bred, who will now kick off his 2018 campaign a week from Saturday in the $1.2 million Charles Town Classic.

Diversify has spent the past several months at the Palm Meadows training center, where he’ll have one more work this weekend prior to shipping out early next week for the race.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Midnight Bisou and Skye Diamonds will be late arrivals to Churchill Downs for Kentucky Derby weekend stakes engagements, trainer Bill Spawr said Thursday at his Santa Anita stable.

Midnight Bisou, impressive winner of the Santa Anita Oaks, ships to Churchill Downs on April 30, four days before she runs in the Kentucky Oaks on May 4. Skye Diamonds, the graded stakes winner targeting the Humana Distaff on May 5, will be on the same flight.

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin isn’t typically a participant in the early 2-year-old races run on this circuit. He may be this year.

McLaughlin purchased privately the juvenile filly No Limit Babe after she finished second to Luv This Lifestyle at Keeneland on Sunday. McLaughlin purchased the daughter of Artie Schiller on behalf of owners Terry Murray and Paul Braverman.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Joking, who hasn’t run since winning the Grade 1 Vosburgh at Belmont in 2016, has worked three times in two weeks as he attempts to return to the races as a 9-year-old later this spring.

On Monday, Joking worked a half-mile in 49.75 seconds over the Belmont Park training track. He had a pair of three-furlong works before then.

“So far, he’s been going good, he’ll work again this Saturday,” trainer and owner Charlton Baker said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After winning three graded stakes on dirt last Saturday at Aqueduct, trainer Todd Pletcher will aim for a pair of listed stakes scheduled for the turf on this Saturday’s nine-race program at Aqueduct.

Pletcher entered three 3-year-olds in the $100,000 Bridgetown at six furlongs. He also entered recent acquisition Not Taken in the $100,000 Plenty of Grace for older fillies and mares scheduled for a mile on the turf.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Magnum Moon and Solomini, the first- and second-place finishers in the $900,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on March 17, drew side by side for their rematch in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby.

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STICKNEY, Ill. – Friday’s eight-race Hawthorne program has some playable fields on the back end of the card and is headlined by race 7, an Illinois-bred two-turn dirt allowance.

While the race is open to older horses, the 3-year-old Colour Guard is likely to be a defined favorite. Trained by Dane Kobiskie, Colour Guard makes his first start in Illinois-bred competition and comes off three solid performances at Oaklawn Park.

STICKNEY, Ill. – Trainer Larry Rivelli is gearing up for his big meet of the year, Arlington, and the promising 3-year-old he trains The Tabulator is gearing up for his first start of the year.

Rivelli winters at Tampa Bay Downs and runs some horses in South Florida between November and April, but he has become the perennial leading trainer at Arlington, and even as that meet has fallen on hard times, it has become the focal point of his year.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Sailor’s Valentine, winner of the Grade 1 Ashland here last spring, was scratched from the Grade 1 Madison last Saturday to run instead in the fourth race Friday, a $78,000 allowance that happens to be the first one-mile dirt race of the meet.

“We wanted to look at the Madison, but after we got the one-hole, I was glad to have a backup plan,” said Eddie Kenneally, who trains Sailor’s Valentine for Semaphore Racing and Homewrecker Racing.