A year ago, Neck ’ n Neck captured the Indiana Derby in the midst of a career upswing. The colt returns to the Hoosier State on Saturday, but this time will be making his first start in nearly a year after injury halted his season in its tracks.

A 4-year-old Flower Alley colt who races for his breeder, A. Steven Miles Jr., Neck ‘n Neck is part of a strong field for the $100,000 Michael G. Schaefer Memorial Stakes, one of seven stakes races preceding the Grade 2 Indiana Derby and Grade 2 Indiana Oaks. The stakes-rich program moves from Hoosier Park to Indiana Downs this year.

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DEL MAR, Calif. – Rail Trip, the millionaire 8-year-old gelding, needs a start in Wednesday’s $90,000 Pirate’s Bounty Stakes at Del Mar to stay on schedule for a fall campaign at Santa Anita. and a start in the Breeders’ Cup.

He is not the only runner in the six-furlong race in that situation.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Rail Trip will not be able to defend his title in the Grade 2, $200,000 San Diego Handicap on July 27 because of a foot bruise, according to his trainer, Ron Ellis.

[DEL MAR 2013: Complete meet coverage, schedule, race replays]

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Trainer Ron Ellis said Sunday that Centralinteligence and Rail Trip emerged from the Grade 1 Triple Bend Handicap on Saturday “perfect,” but they are headed in different directions in the next two months.

Centralinteligence, who scored the first stakes win of his career in the Triple Bend, will get a vacation during the summer and will not run at Del Mar. His next start will be the Grade 1 Santa Anita Sprint Championship – formerly the Ancient Title – as a prep for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Comma to the Top earned a fan in jockey Edwin Maldonado when the gelding won the Tom Fool Handicap by a nose at Aqueduct on March 2.

Watching from Southern California, Maldonado was impressed the way that Comma to the Top fought off persistent challengers through the stretch.

“It was the way he did it,” Maldonado said. “He had horses inside and outside of him and fought back and won. He never had a chance to relax.”

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The two Grade 1 races at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday will have small fields.

As of Sunday, there were five probable starters for the $300,000 Shoemaker Mile on turf and five or six candidates for the $250,000 Triple Bend Handicap over seven furlongs on the synthetic main track.

The 2012 winners of both races are back this year.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Ron Ellis had three runners in the Breeders’ Cup, and while none of them won, two finished in the money, and, best news of all for the trainer, it appears all three will remain in training for 2013.

The best-known of Ellis’s trio is Rail Trip, who rallied for second in the Dirt Mile behind Tapizar after finding himself caught in traffic for much of the race.

“It was a tough track to close on,” Ellis said the other morning at Betfair Hollywood Park. “He’s not used to running that way. I was pretty proud of him.”

The three Breeders’ Cup runners trainer Ron Ellis will send out Nov. 2-3 at Santa Anita – Include Me Out, Rail Trip, and Teddy’s Promise – all worked at Betfair Hollywood Park on Tuesday as they moved closer to the richest races of their careers.

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.

Like many of the Breeders’ Cup events, the lineup for the $1 million Dirt Mile has a lot of “ifs” to it, at least at this early juncture.

The results of the next two weekends, with such key races as the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park and Grade 1 Awesome Again at Santa Anita still to be run, should allow quite a bit of the proverbial dust to settle while determining the outlook for the Dirt Mile.