STICKNEY, Ill. – Hawthorne Race Course’s 37-day winter-spring meet that ended Sunday proved to be another season of decline, with betting off more than 13 percent compared to the 2013 winter-spring meet.

Average daily all-sources handle fell from $1,748,804 during a 40-day meet a year ago to $1,515,647 this year, a drop of 13.3 percent. Even more troubling is the drastic erosion of Hawthorne winter-spring handle since 2012, when the track averaged more than $2.2 million in daily handle, a figure more than 30 percent higher than this meet’s daily average.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Grand Contender will be nominated to the Grade 3, $200,000 Lone Star Park Handicap following his win Saturday night in the track’s Texas Mile, but whether he starts in the second leg of the Global Gaming Triple hasn’t been determined, according to trainer Tom Amoss.

[bc_video_id:322803:]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The first time Art Sherman came to the Kentucky Derby, in 1955, it was as a stable hand for trainer Mesh Tenney, and he traveled from California by railcar, sleeping on straw, next to the horse who brought him here, Swaps.

Sherman was a bit player in the story of Swaps, who won that Derby. But when he left California on Monday, Sherman did so as the trainer of the horse acknowledged as the favorite for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, California Chrome.

The Manitoba Horse Racing Commission has confirmed a case of neurological equine herpesvirus (EHV-1) at Assiniboia Downs, where a quarantine is in effect.

Trainers of horses who have been on the grounds of the Winnipeg, Manitoba, track since April 15 must contact the Ontario Racing Commission vet at Woodbine or Fort Erie if they are considering shipping to either track.

Opening day of the 60-day Assiniboia meet is May 4.

Winning the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile last Saturday with Pepper Crown – a horse he bred, owns, and trains – would by itself have given Alex Paszkeicz an unforgettable week. But Paszkeicz wasn’t done.

On Sunday, Paszkeicz won a maiden race with Pepper Crown’s younger full brother, Pazmeifucan. Earlier in the week, He’s a Pepper, a 2-year-old full brother to Pepper Crown and Pazmeifucan, arrived at Paszkeicz’s barn in Pleasanton, where he will soon get his first official work.

[bc_video_id:322796:]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In racing, the big fish often eat the small fish. That explains why Billy Gowan’s cellphone started blowing up just a few minutes after Ride On Curlin made his career debut last summer at Churchill Downs.

“We had a lot of tire-kickers but only two serious offers,” Gowan said. “They wanted to tell me everything that was wrong with the horse, and I wanted to tell them everything that was right with him.”

[bc_video_id:322822:]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Untapable was assigned the outside post as the heavy favorite in a field of 13 3-year-old fillies entered in the Grade 1, $1 million Kentucky Oaks, to be run Friday at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainers tend to follow the same routine with their horses, morning after morning, at most any racetrack, whether a half-mile bush track or Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby Week. But there was nothing routine about training hours under the Twin Spires on Monday morning, with torrential downpours and severe lightning interfering with the plans of a couple of top Derby contenders. Ultimately, however, it did not deter either Tapiture or Hoppertunity from getting in key workouts over the sloppy Churchill strip.

Twenty-three horses ran in a rough-and-tumble edition of the Kentucky Derby in 1974, and that was too many, track officials decided before the 1975 Derby, capping the maximum number of starters at 20, though a court injunction permitted a 21st runner in 1981.

It wasn’t until 1999 that the Derby drew more than 20 entrants again and the 20-horse maximum, determined by graded-stakes earnings, had to be invoked, but since 2004, a full Derby entry box of 20 horses has become the rule.

Trainer Todd Pletcher was candid following We Miss Artie’s workout Sunday, describing it as poor for a horse who usually works well on dirt, even though his best races have been on turf and synthetic.

On Monday, upon more reflection, Pletcher said he still wasn’t happy with the way he worked but did offer a few reasons why We Miss Artie wasn’t as sharp as he had hoped.

[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]