Test Score ran a near-perfect race at 3-5 to win the Grade 2 Twilight Derby on turf on Oct. 25 at Santa Anita.

Test Score stalked the pace and took the lead in the final furlong, a style that he has used with consistent success and will make him a deserving favorite in Saturday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Hollywood Derby on turf at Del Mar.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – While there is no stakes race on Saturday’s 10-race card at Aqueduct, there are several interesting betting events, topped by a starter allowance where two last-out, big speed-figure winners are likely to take the bulk of the money but are both facing winners for the first time.

The class hike from maiden to graded stakes is not too difficult, particularly the jump into the Grade 3 Jimmy Durante Stakes, a turf mile for 2-year-old fillies on Saturday at Del Mar.

The Durante has been run 11 times at Del Mar; seven winners entered off last-out maiden wins. The historical curiosity requires handicappers to reevaluate the element of class, which is always fluid when it comes to 2-year-olds and virtually irrelevant when it comes to the Durante.

Two prominent stakes winners with opposite running styles return from layoffs with the same objective Saturday at Del Mar – pick up where they left off.

Almendares, a late-runner returning from a two-month break, and El Potente, a front-runner returning from a nine-month break, meet in the Grade 2 Seabiscuit Stakes. The 1 1/16-mile route, race 5, is the first of three turf stakes Saturday at Del Mar. The Grade 3 Jimmy Durante, a wide-open mile for 2-year-old fillies, is race 7, while the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby, a 1 1/8-mile race with standout favorite Test Score, is race 9.

The Grade 2, $400,000 Golden Rod Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Churchill Downs on Saturday offers qualifying points, on a 10-5-3-2-1 basis, toward the 2026 Kentucky Oaks – the race has historically been a good place to spot Oaks candidates.

Only in October does the 3-year-old dirt-route set converge with the older dirt-route division, at least in graded stakes competition. So far this year – advantage older horses. Granted, 2025’s best 3-year-old, Sovereignty, got sick and missed the Breeders’ Cup Classic, but in his absence, 4-year-olds swept the first three placings. In the Fayette at Keeneland last month, 5-year-old Hit Show won by a length over 6-year-old Rattle N Roll, and those two return for the latest battle of generations, the Grade 2, $600,000 Clark Stakes on Friday at Churchill Downs.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Linda Rice won nine races at Aqueduct last week, increasing her total number of wins in 2025 to a personal-best 174, surpassing her previous one-year high of 167 set in 2024.

Rice has tallied 157 of those wins at New York Racing Association tracks – Aqueduct and Saratoga. With 14 cards left to be run on this circuit this year, Rice is on schedule to finish 2025 as the leading trainer in wins as she has 38 more than Chad Brown, who ranks second.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Carlos Martin said his father, Jose Martin, taught him it was usually best to give his 2-year-olds turning 3 a break during the winter. However, his grandfather, Hall of Fame horseman Frank “Pancho” Martin, ascribed to the theory of never stopping on a horse when they were doing well.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Norm McKnight is winding down his training career and is planning to retire at the end of the current Woodbine meet on Dec. 14.

McKnight won more than 1,000 races as a Standardbred driver before switching to Thoroughbred training in the 1990s at the behest of owner Lou Donato after a barn fire wiped out his stable in 1991.

McKnight sent out his 1,000th winner as a Thoroughbred trainer in September. He led the Woodbine standings in wins from 2017-19 and saddled a meet-record 128 winners in 2018. He won five races on a single Woodbine card twice.