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On Saturday, First Dude won his first Grade 1 stakes, and third consecutive race, in the $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup, earning a fees-paid berth to the Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs in November.

Saturday's $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup added a veteran Wednesday when defending champion Awesome Gem joined the field on the day entries were taken.

Awesome Gem can no longer be taken for granted in major stakes.

Rail Trip, the leading older male in California in recent months and the runner-up in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup last Saturday, has been transferred from trainer Ron Ellis in California to Rick Dutrow in New York, owner Mace Siegel said on Tuesday.

So what if Awesome Gem needed 13 starts in Grade 1 races over 40 months to finally win a race at that level in Saturday's $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup at Hollywood Park?

For more than a decade, the acquisition of high-priced claimers helped trainer Mike Mitchell win some of the biggest races of his career.

Richard's Kid, the winner of the 2009 Pacific Classic, will make his first start since a seventh-place finish in the Dubai World Cup in March in the $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on Saturday.

Hollywood Park has made severe cuts to its stakes schedule for the upcoming spring-summer meeting from April 21 to July 18, including reducing the purses of five Grade 1 races.

A day after being privately acquired by Frank Stronach, Mast Track ended a nine-race losing streak in Saturday's $100,000 Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park.

The horses who have won four of the last five runnings of the Hollywood Gold Cup are probable starters in Saturday's $100,000 Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Summer Bird, the nation's leading 3-year-old in 2009, underwent successful surgery to mend a nondisplaced fracture of the cannon bone of his right foreleg on Friday and could return to trainer Tim Ice's winter base in Arkansas by the middle of this week.

It's easy to put a label on a horse.

The development of Parading from an allowance-class runner in 2007 and 2008 into a multiple graded stakes winner this year has taken trainer Shug McGaughey and the powerful Phipps Stable in a different direction than usual.

Rafael Bejarano, the leading rider at all major meetings in Southern California since the start of 2008, stole the spotlight from the statebreds on Saturday's California Gold Rush program at Hollywood Park.

The first eight races of Saturday's California Gold Rush program at Hollywood Park were just short of a disaster for jockey Garrett Gomez. He rode six of the races, and his best result was two fifth-place finishes.

Cranky, irritated, and finally discouraged, Unbridled Roman had little success in the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 4.