NEW ORLEANS – Hours before starting a trio of 3-year-olds Saturday in the $400,000 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds, trainer Brad Cox worked four more 3-year-olds here who are bound for stakes competition. 

The Grade 3, $400,000 Steve Sexton Mile will again anchor the Lone Star Park stakes schedule that was announced Thursday.  

In all, there will be 21 stakes worth a total of $2.9 million. The 44-date meet opens April 13 and runs through July 4.  

Purses are projected to average $260,000 per card, according to the press release from Lone Star.  

Jockey Umberto Rispoli, tied for 11^th in the standings among a tough group of riders at Santa Anita, plans to change agents next month.

Rispoli said on Wednesday that he will part ways with Tony Matos on March 5. Matos has represented Rispoli since last May when the jockey returned to California after a brief stay in Kentucky.

Rispoli said he has not finalized plans for a new agent. Matos will continue to book mounts for Abel Cedillo.

“Tony is a good person, but it was the right time to part,” Rispoli said.

The 3-year-old filly Teena Ella will stay on turf for the foreseeable future after winning a six-furlong maiden race on the surface at Santa Anita last Sunday.

Trainer Richard Mandella warned on Thursday that Teena Ella is far from having reached her potential.

By War Front, Teena Ella is out of Beholder, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame last summer. Beholder won 18 of 26 starts, 16 stakes, and earned $6,156,600. She raced from 2012-2016. Beholder was the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012, 3-year-old filly of 2013, and older female of 2015 and 2016.

Slow Down Andy, a three-time stakes winner who was third in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Keeneland in November, is in the midst of a farm vacation.

Trainer Doug O’Neill said earlier this week that Slow Down Andy was turned out at the beginning of this month at owner-breeders Paul and Zillah Reddam’s Ocean Breeze Ranch in Bonsall, Calif.

Slow Down Andy missed an expected start in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26 because of soreness and had not trained to O’Neill’s satisfaction in the first weeks of the year.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Piece of My Heart, claimed for $80,000 by Rudy Rodriguez on Feb. 10, was entered Wednesday for Saturday’s $125,000 Heavenly Prize Invitational, which was expected to draw a field of five horses.

Previously trained by Linda Rice, Piece of My Heart finished second in the Interborough Stakes going six furlongs on Jan. 11 before finishing second in the aforementioned optional claimer, her 10th runner-up finish from 28 starts.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Arctic Arrogance, second to Hit Show in the Grade 3 Withers Stakes, will be pointed to the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes on March 4, trainer Linda Rice said Wednesday.

Rice said neither the three weeks back to the Gotham nor the eight weeks to the Grade 2 Wood Memorial is ideal, but that she didn’t want to wait two months to run the horse back.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jockey Trevor McCarthy, injured in a spill on Nov. 18 at Aqueduct, got back on horses Tuesday morning for the first time in nearly three months and is targeting a March 3 return.

McCarthy suffered a fractured collarbone and a pelvic injury when he went down during the running of the sixth race on Nov. 18. On Tuesday, he jogged three horses and galloped one over the Belmont Park training track. On Wednesday, he galloped three horses and jogged one.

The well-bred Wadsworth has hit his stride at Turfway Park, with a Saturday night allowance-level score his second straight win on the Tapeta. Trainer Brad Cox said he and owner-breeder Godolphin are “definitely considering” Turfway’s upcoming Kentucky Derby points races for the gelding.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Hit Show, the Grade 3 Withers winner, hit the road Wednesday and will do his training at Fair Grounds for his next start, which is still likely to occur in the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial on April 8 at Aqueduct.

Dustin Dugas, the Belmont Park-based assistant to trainer Brad Cox, said owner Gary West expressed a preference not to stay in New York for the next two months and train over the deep Belmont training track.

Hit Show was stabled at Oaklawn Park before shipping to New York for the Withers, which he won by 5 1/2 lengths.