Street Sense heavily favored for Blue Grass

Street Sense enters his final prep race before the Kentucky Derby as a heavy favorite to defeat six rivals in Saturday’s Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.

The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner was made the 4-5 favorite Wednesday by track oddsmaker Mike Battaglia for the 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass, which will be run over Polytrack for the first time. Great Hunter, who defeated Street Sense over Keeneland’s synthetic surface last year in the Breeders’ Futurity, was the second choice at 9-5.

•Unbeaten Curlin is the morning-line favorite for Saturday’s Arkansas Derby in Hot Springs, Ark., the last of Oaklawn Park’s three Kentucky Derby prep races.

Curlin has only two career starts, but both were impressive victories. The chestnut colt won last month’s Rebel at Oaklawn by 5 1/4 lengths, following a 12 3/4-length romp in his debut at Gulfstream Park in February.

•Ketchikan will not be entered in the Kentucky Derby because of a bruised bone in his left front leg.

Trainer Al Stall Jr. said that the injury is not serious enough to keep the 3-year-old thoroughbred, named for a city on Alaska’s panhandle, from racing again.

Soccer

Maradona released

Soccer star Diego Maradona was released from a private clinic after two weeks of treatment for acute hepatitis brought on by alcohol abuse.

Doctors gave the 47-year-old Maradona a stern warning: no more drinking or eating big meals. He was taken to the Buenos Aires clinic March 28 suffering from what his doctor said was too much alcohol, too much food and too many cigars.

•Colombian officials dropped their bid to host the World Cup in 2014.

Miscellany

Zabaleta upsets Fish

Argentine Mariano Zabaleta upset defending champion Mardy Fish of the United States 7-5, 6-4 in the second round of the U.S. Clay Court Tennis Championships in Houston.

Zabaleta plays last year’s runner-up, Jurgen Melzer of Austria, in the quarterfinals Friday.

•Only three women ranked in the top 10 will compete in the first round of the Fed Cup – and they’ll all play for Russia.

Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and Anna Chakvetadze officially were chosen to represent Russia against Spain on indoor clay in Moscow.

•Buddy Lazier, the 1996 Indy 500 champion, plans to return to the cockpit in May with Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

•Ralph Heywood, an All-America end who played football at Southern California in 1943 who later served in three wars as a U.S. Marine, has died at 85. He died Tuesday in Bandera, Texas, the school said. The cause was not given.

•Ladislav Pataki, a standout thrower in track and field and sports scientist who defected from the Soviet Union in 1985 to Silicon Valley, has died at 60 in San Jose, Calif., of brain cancer.

•Five members of a women’s rowing team from the University of Scranton (Pa.) were treated for hypothermia after their boat capsized in the frigid Susquehanna River.