Trainer

Maryland trainer Carlos Garcia said it takes a little patience to coax success from an inexpensive race horse. He might have added love and peppermints, too, because that is what the 62-year-old gives his Laurel Park-based horses, and it has paid off well. Saturday, Garcia will send Action Andy, the winner of the Jim McKay Maryland Million Sprint, to post in the 21st running of the Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash. If Action Andy wins, it will be Garcia's 145th career stakes victory.

What do you call a horse who stops and sights his target - the racetrack - before a workout? Target Sighted, of course. And to exercise rider Molly Moran, who arrives early to wait with the horse for the Laurel Park track to open for training at 5:30 a.m. each day, the moniker couldn't be more fitting. "It's his trademark," said Moran, who has been working the 6-year-old for trainer Fran Campitelli for the past four years. "He likes to be the first one out, and he likes to stand and look around.

The 19-year-old man shot inside the Morgan State University student center Wednesday was on campus visiting his cousin, a member of the school's football team, according to Baltimore police. It was a football player who first spotted the victim, said Donald Hill-Eley, Morgan State's head football coach. The player, whom Hill-Eley would not identify, saw the victim collapse outside the student center, he said. The player described the victim as bleeding profusely from the mouth and torso.

Et cetera Trainers Ness, McMahon share honors at Timonium Remnants of Hurricane Isaac streaked across the Timonium fairgrounds just before call to the post for the final race of the Maryland State Fair meeting Monday afternoon, forcing officials to cancel the race and end the program. The meeting ended with a tie for training honors between Jamie Ness and Hugh McMahon . Both saddled five winners over seven days. McMahon won a trainer's bonus of $4,000 with points based on 1-2-3 finishers and number of starters.

Even-money favorite Paynter, who took second in last month's Belmont Stakes, ran away down the stretch to win Sunday's $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. The victory, in 1 minute, 48.87 seconds, is the third in a row for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and sixth overall in the 1 1/8-mile, Grade I stakes. Ridden by Rafael Bejarano for the first time, Paynter stumbled at the start and was forced to follow 2-1 second pick Gemologist around the first turn and into the backstretch before taking the lead around the final turn for a 3 3/4-length win over Nonios, followed by Stealcase, Handsome Mike, Dullahan and Gemologist.

Horse racing Sham trainer 'Pancho' Martin dead at 86 Hall of Famer Frank "Pancho" Martin , the trainer of Sham, who finished second to Secretariat in the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, died Wednesday night at his home in Garden City, N.Y., after a brief illness. He was 86. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, the Cuban-born Martin saddled 3,240 winners worth more than $47.5 million, including champions Autobiography, who won the Eclipse Award as the nation's top older horse in 1972; Outstandingly, 1984's top 2-year-old filly; and Sham, who won the 1973 Santa Anita Derby.

Veterinarians who examined Preakness winner I'll Have Another before and after the race at Pimlico Race Course said this week that he was healthy and that his medication regimen was not unusual. The New York Times reported that the colt, who also won the Kentucky Derby but scratched with a tendon injury a day before the Belmont Stakes, had suffered from osteoarthritis and was given "powerful painkillers and a synthetic joint fluid" in the days leading up to the final leg of the Triple Crown.

A growing number of thoroughbreds are being groomed for new roles following their days on the race track, including assignments as fox hunters, riding horses, pets and show jumpers. Maryland thoroughbred trainer Rodney Jenkins points to the intelligence of a horse as one of the reasons why the animal is able to easily make the transition into the next stage of its life. "It's really a thrilling thing to watch a horse in action," Jenkins said. "They're beautiful animals. They're not dumb.

Not the beverage koozie. A couple of weeks that have been choked by distraction for Doug O'Neill and his Triple Crown contender  I'll Have Another came to a head Friday when it was announced that "vendor error" had canceled a giveaway in the colt's honor. He was supposed to adorn koozies -- yeah, those things that keep your beer from getting warm -- given to fans today. O'Neill, despondent, declined comment. OK. That last sentence isn't true. But the trainer on the cusp of running for the Triple Crown did take unusual action this morning when he brought his horse to the track at 5:30, right when it opened.

As  I'll Have Another  ducked from his barn for an early 5:30 workout Friday, his connections could only hope what they'd seen the day before was an aberration. They'd buried their deepest fear, only admitting hours later that, as owner J. Paul Reddam would say, "… History is going to have to wait for another day. " I'll Have Another scratched from Saturday's 144th Belmont, becoming the first horse since Bold Venture in 1936 not to go to post with a chance to win the Triple Crown.