HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Nobody was looking forward to the $125,000 Tropical Park Oaks here Saturday more than the Tampa Bay Downs-based trainer Gerald Bennett, whose Crafty Collector figured to be among the favorites in the final Florida stakes this season in which 3-year-old fillies get to race against their own age group.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – As is the case every year, trainers Todd Pletcher and Chad Brown are watching several accomplished horses leave their barn for the breeding shed. As is the case, almost every year, there appear to be suitable replacements to fill the void.

Pletcher bid adieu to older males Fierceness, Locked, and Mindframe, who in 2025 alone combined to win four Grade 1 stakes.

Thirsty Rebel and Saul Elliott were second and third in the $101,000 I’m Smokin Stakes for California-bred 2-year-olds at Del Mar on Sept. 5. Neither has won since, a trend that may end for one of them in an allowance race for statebred sprinters at Los Alamitos on Friday.

Thirsty Rebel and Saul Elliott are the two leading contenders in a field of seven in the day’s first race. Los Alamitos has afternoon programs from Friday through Sunday, the final days of the track’s two-week Thoroughbred fall meeting. The Santa Anita winter-spring meeting begins on Dec. 26.

Group 3 winner Sergei Prokofiev, last year’s leading freshman sire in England and Ireland, will return home to Canada to continue his stud career.

Anderson Farms, which bred the son of Scat Daddy, announced that it has acquired and syndicated the stallion, who will stand at Ballycroy Bloodstock in Loretto, Ontario, for a fee of $10,000 Canadian. Anderson sold Sergei Prokofiev for $1.1 million as a Keeneland September yearling to the Coolmore team, which raced him and then stood him at Whitsbury Manor Stud in England. His runners are led by Group 1 winner Arizona Blaze.

Thorpedo Anna will be bred to Gun Runner for her first mating, pairing two Horse of the Year honorees.

Thorpedo Anna, by Fast Anna, retired in October with 12 wins from 16 career starts and earnings of more than $5.4 million. Her seven Grade 1 victories included, in her championship campaign, the 2024 Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff. The filly is now owned in majority by John Sikura’s Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm, with the Magdalena Farm of trainer Kenny McPeek’s family and her breeder, Judy Hicks, holding minority interests.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Spun D M C has several variables in his favor heading into the $150,000 Advent Stakes for 2-year-olds on Friday’s season opener at Oaklawn Park – including a key one over which he had no control. And in the words of the rap group Run DMC, post positions can be “tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky.”

Spun D M C will start from gate 6 in a field of seven that meets over 5 1/2 furlongs.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Perhaps the biggest handicapping story of the Woodbine meet, which wraps up on Sunday, is how biased the Tapeta has been toward the inside, especially on the far turn. Rail speed has been effective, and horses saving ground have been able to angle wide in the stretch and win with regularity, which was the case last Friday after speed dominated early on the card.

Though he’s nearing the end of his 6-year-old season, Empire Sky is in the best form of his career. He’s won two of his last three starts, winning on turf at Monmouth Park and dirt at Parx Racing.

On Wednesday, Empire Sky will give Tampa Bay Downs – and seven furlongs – a try in a seemingly competitive first-level allowance that goes as last of nine races on the card.