HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The multiple Grade 2 winner Departing has been highweighted at 122 pounds for the $100,000 Essex Handicap on Saturday at Oaklawn, but he instead will run on turf at Fair Grounds, trainer Al Stall Jr. said Monday.

“He breezed here at Fair Grounds on Sunday,” said Stall.

Stall said Departing is being pointed for the Grade 3, $125,000 Fair Grounds Handicap on Feb. 20. The horse won the Grade 2 Firecracker on the grass in June at Churchill Downs. Earlier at this Oaklawn meet, Departing was second by a head in the $100,000 Fifth Season.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Matt King Coal, an impressive maiden winner last fall at Belmont, returned to the work tab Sunday for the first time in 10 weeks, breezing a half-mile in 49.93 seconds in company over the training track. He galloped out five furlongs in 1:02.19 and six furlongs in 1:15.10.

If he continues to train like this, Matt King Coal could run in the Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham on March 5, trainer Linda Rice said.

Allow Masquerade an easy lead, and she’s not easy to run down on the Fair Grounds turf course. Hooked and cooked Jan. 17 in the Marie Krantz Memorial, Masquerade, dropped in for a $62,500 claiming price in a turf route that’s also open to third-level allowance runners, could shake loose and back up the pace under Florent Geroux in Thursday’s featured eighth race.

If not Masquerade on the lead, then her trainer, Mike Stidham, has an off-the-pace contender in Zubi Zubi Zu. Treaty Oak, another Krantz dropper, also is in with a chance.

Shotgun Kowboy, the winner of the Grade 3 Oklahoma Derby and seventh last out in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap at Churchill last fall, could make his 4-year-old debut Feb. 20 in the Grade 3, $125,000 Mineshaft Handicap.

C.R. Trout bred and owns Shotgun Kowboy and trained him through the Clark Handicap, but Shotgun Kowboy now is being handled by Bret Calhoun, who has him stabled with his string at the Evangeline Training Center, where Shotgun Kowboy on Saturday worked five furlongs in 1:03.60.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Two horses coming off big performances Saturday at Gulfstream Park, Donn Handicap winner Mshawish and Lady Shipman, who cruised to victory as the odds-on favorite in the Ladies’ Turf Sprint, will be heading to Dubai for their next starts, while it appears that Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap winner Lukes Alley will not.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After winning his last two starts by a combined 13 1/2 lengths, including the Grade 3 Mr. Prospector, X Y Jet is looking for new worlds to conquer. In fact, his connections would love to send him halfway across the world for his next major test, the Dubai Golden Shaheen on March 26 on the Dubai World Cup card.

Carlos Morales, stable manager for Ivan Rodriguez Gelfenstein’s Gelfenstein Farm, said they nominated X Y Jet to the Golden Shaheen but have yet to receive an invitation to the race.

The Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie Stakes on Saturday at Laurel Park will match last year’s winner, the 6-year-old Lady Sabelia, against the rapidly improving 4-year-old Hot City Girl. A field of seven was entered Monday for the $300,000 Fritchie, a seven-furlong race for fillies and mares.

Saturday is the first day of Laurel’s winter carnival, which concludes on Presidents Day Monday with the Grade 3, $250,000 General George, a seven-furlong race for 4-year-olds and up. There are a pair of $75,000 supporting stakes on each program.

Trainer Mark Casse on Sunday confirmed that Airoforce, an Eclipse Award finalist for champion 2-year-old male of 2015, will ship from south Florida to New Orleans next week to make his 3-year-old debut Feb. 20 in the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star Stakes.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas has put a health scare far behind him and is back in a familiar spot at this Oaklawn Park meet – with a promising 3-year-old prospect in Z Royal.

Z Royal breezed Monday for an intended start in the Grade 3, $500,000 Southwest Stakes. Lukas said Gary Stevens will ride the Zayat Stables-owned horse in the race next Monday.

Lukas, 80, has fully recovered from a heart scare last September. He had been briefly hospitalized in Philadelphia, where was set to run horses in stakes at Parx Racing on a Saturday.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado is winless with 18 mounts at the Gulfstream Park meet but will look to score with his first mount of the Tampa Bay Downs meet on Wednesday.

Prado will ride War Order, a War Front colt owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Thani and trained by Graham Motion, in the eighth race, a $23,000 maiden special weight race going one mile and 40 yards. The race drew a field of nine 3-year-olds, and War Order is the 2-1 morning-line favorite.