ARCADIA, Calif. – Game On Dude has raced this year in Dubai, at Hollywood Park, and Del Mar, but it is at Santa Anita, where he began his 2012 campaign, that he shines best, which is why he will be the focal point of the Grade 1, $250,000 Awesome Again Stakes on Saturday.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Doug O’Neill returns to work Friday after serving a 40-day suspension for a 2010 medication violation. The end of the suspension coincides with Friday’s opening day of the Santa Anita autumn meeting.

O’Neill may have been gone for more than a month, but his stable was highly active. Led by assistant trainer Leandro Mora, the barn won 10 races in the final weeks at Del Mar and won with 15 of 96 starters overall racing throughout the nation.

ARCADIA, Calif. – California, here they come, right back where the Breeders’ Cup started.

For the third time in the last five years, fourth time in the last 10 years, and ninth time since its inaugural running in 1984, the Breeders’ Cup returns this fall to Southern California. With the opening of Santa Anita’s autumn meeting on Friday, and a plethora of important stakes races at Santa Anita and Belmont Park this weekend, the countdown has commenced to the 15-race Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 2-3 at Santa Anita.

Richard’s Kid, who finished third in the $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 26, will start in Saturday’s $250,000 Awesome Again Stakes, a key prep for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 3.

Richard’s Kid will be racing for trainer Doug O’Neill, who will return to training Friday after serving a 40-day suspension for a 2010 medication violation. The suspension ends Thursday, allowing O’Neill to resume normal activity Friday.

In August, Richard’s Kid was sold to a partnership led by Triple B Farms. The Pacific Classic was his first start for the new partners.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The rivalry between the barns of trainers Bob Baffert and Doug O’Neill has been the focal point in the days leading up to the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Sunday, but the steel-cage match has been several months in the making.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The winner of the Kentucky Derby has been retired, so too the runner-up, but the third-place finisher, Dullahan, soldiers on, and on Sunday at Del Mar he will attempt to raise his game to a new level when he takes on elders for the first time in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic.

On Wednesday night, Dullahan landed post 5 in a field of 10 when post positions were drawn for the Pacific Classic. Joel Rosario will ride him for the first time. Dullahan is 6-1 on the morning line of Del Mar’s Russell Hudak, who made Game On Dude the 5-2 favorite.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Game On Dude, who won the Hollywood Gold Cup in his last start, drew post 9 and was installed as the 5-2 favorite when a field of 10 was entered and post positions drawn on Wednesday night for the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic on Sunday at Del Mar. The draw took place at Burlap, a popular local restaurant a few miles from the track.

Doug O’Neill has missed saddling a big horse in a big race before. It’s the nature of the game in this globally oriented age, and it helps to have an assistant trainer you can count on to set the tack right.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Bob Baffert must feel like the whole world is ganging up on him these days.

First, he had Richard’s Kid sold out from under him over the weekend, and then on Monday morning at Del Mar, while his top Pacific Classic contender Game On Dude was in the midst of his final work, another Pacific Classic contender, the Florida invader Where’s Sterling, jumped in and tried to go with Game On Dude.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The sale of top Pacific Classic contender Richard’s Kid by Zabeel International to a partnership led by Paul Boghossian’s Triple B Farms took less than 24 hours on Friday and Saturday and surprised many of the participants because of its rapid completion.