Youth Stakes

The mutuel field is a 3-1 favorite in the second round of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager, showing that no horse has captured the attention of bettors two months before the year's first Triple Crown race. Read The Footnotes, who won the Grade I Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 14, is the second favorite at 6-1. Eurosilver, trained by three-time Triple Crown race winner Nick Zito, is third in the betting line at 8-1. It's the fifth straight year that the mutual field was listed as the favorite in the first two rounds of the three-part future wager, where bettors try to predict the winner of U.S. horse racing's highest-profile race.

HALLANDALE, Fla. -- While Dehere and Go for Gin rested for their next tests on the road to the Kentucky Derby, a strong new challenge was mounted at Gulfstream Park yesterday when the colt Patton outran other 3-year-old contenders by 8 1/2 lengths and took dead aim at the racing classics.Patton, a son of Lord At War and a grandson of Seattle Slew, led all the way in an allowance race for colts who skipped Saturday's Fountain of Youth Stakes. At the wire, he was drawing far in front of Nick Zito's Crary, the stablemate of Go for Gin, who had three-quarters of a length on Line Dance.

... TC The Triple Crown prep season gets serious today when early Kentucky Derby favorite Unbridled's Song takes on seven rivals in the $200,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.Despite the defection of Appealing Skier, a strong field is due to test Unbridled's Song, including the D. Wayne Lukas entry of Editor's Note, Victory Speech and Gold Fever.New Farm's Appealing Skier, trained by Ben Perkins Sr., beat the Derby choice in the seven-furlong Hutcheson Stakes on Feb. 4. That was considered a tuneup for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- The "graveyard of favorites," as Saratoga Race Course is often called, more than lived up to its reputation in Saturday's Travers Stakes.Not only did favored Strike the Gold fall flat, but the race may also have cost second choice Hansel his racing career.Speaking yesterday from his headquarters at Arlington Park in suburban Chicago, trainer Frank Brothers said a racing future for Hansel, the Preakness and Belmont winner, was "possible but not probable.""He's probably finished racing for the year, and the decision about his career will be made shortly," Brothers said.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -- Perhaps it's the name: Booklet. It's not "Novel" or "Epic" or even "Abridged Version." It's just Booklet. He gets no respect. Booklet is a smallish bay colt, a son of Notebook, who has won six of his seven races. He could become the first horse ever to sweep Gulfstream Park's three major stakes for 3-year-olds: the Holy Bull Stakes, Fountain of Youth Stakes and Florida Derby. He already has won the $100,000 Holy Bull and $200,000 Fountain of Youth, and he will compete Saturday in the $1 million Florida Derby.

Toccet, one of the top two contenders for the Triple Crown series, has been sidelined with ankle problems and may miss the Kentucky Derby. Daniel Borislow, who owns the Laurel-based colt, said last night that Toccet has "remodeling of the ankle" in three ankles. He said that was "kind of like a bad bruise or a minor shin splint." Toccet, a finalist for the Eclipse Award as top 2-year-old, was supposed to be flown Monday from his Laurel Park stall to South Florida, where he was to have raced Feb. 15 in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

The annual guessing game known as "Who's going to win the Derby?" hit full stride over the weekend with no clear favorite emerging after a couple of Kentucky Derby preps in Florida and California. Over the next two months, some clear favorites likely will emerge. But there's one thing to remember: The favorite rarely wins on the first Saturday in May. Scat Daddy rallied late and beat Stormello by the smallest of margins to win the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park in South Florida.

Trainer Todd Pletcher's office has become the major intersection of all roads to Louisville as his assault on the 133rd Kentucky Derby unfolds with clockwork precision. Circular Quay's relentless winning rally from some 17 lengths behind in the Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds and Cowtown Cat's score in the Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct over the weekend illustrate the strength of Pletcher's herd of talented Derby prospects. A week earlier, the Pletcher-trained Scat Daddy upset Nobiz Like Shobiz in the Fountain of Youth Stakes and King of the Roxy took the Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park in Florida.

Mixed Appeal won't get a second shot at winning Laurel's richest handicap for fillies and mares.Last year, the Maryland-based runner unexpectedly turned in the finest performance of her career and pulled down first prize of $120,000 in the Barbara Fritchie Handicap for owner Israel Cohen.But the 7-year-old mare, who was expected to defend her Fritchie title on Saturday, is not up to par and won't appear in the lineup, said Gene Leach, assistant to the horse's trainer, Dean Gaudet.The defection of Mixed Appeal means that the Nickel Stable's Smart 'N Noble will be the local favorite to try to upset out-of-town invaders Lottsa Talc and Triumph At Dawn.

Woods of Windsor is coming home.The Maryland-bred colt bled when he finished a disappointing seventh in the first division of the Fountain of Youth Stakes last Saturday and will skip the Kentucky Derby.Instead, plans now call for the colt to run in a series of 3-year-old stakes at the coming Pimlico meet with the idea of possibly earning a starting berth in the May 15 Preakness."I had a ton of horse until the half-mile pole," jockey Rick Wilson said about his ride on the Adelaide Riggs-owned colt in Saturday's Florida race.