3-23-2019 By My Standards, with Gabriel Saez aboard, pulls to the lead inside of Spinoff in the 106th running of the Grade II $1,000,000 Louisiana Derby at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. Hodges Photography / Amanda Hodges Weir

Every day, we scour the work tabs at racetracks all over the country.  We are looking for workouts that may be of interest and helpful to you — as both race fans and handicappers.  Some of the horses we will be tracking, you will know.  Some of them, you may not know — as of yet.  We will keep a keen eye and stopwatch to see who may be working well:

  1. Spinoff, runner-up to By My Standards in the Louisiana Derby in his last outing, trained at the Palm Beach Downs training center in South Florida for trainer Todd Pletcher this morning. The son of Hard Spun — who has never missed the board in 4 career starts and also ran a nice 3rd in the Saratoga Special last summer at “The Spa” — went 5 furlongs in 1:01.48, which was the fastest time out of two to go that distance. Spinoff is not only by a very handy sire that stands at Darley America, he is out of the great mare Zaftig, a multiple Graded Stakes winner. She sold at Fasig-Tipton in 2011 for $1.4 million and she may turn out to be a bargain at that price, yet.
  2. Cutting Humor, winner of the Sunland Derby in his last start for Team Pletcher, also worked this morning at Palm Beach Downs. He went 4 furlongs in 4 furlongs in :47.90, which was the bullet move over that surface this morning. Starlight purchased this son of First Samurai for $400,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Sale at Saratoga in 2017. He has missed the board only once in 6 career starts, and that was in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park earlier this year. Rebounded with that impressive burst of speed in Arizona.