Trainer Kevin Scholl said last month his goal for Miss Code West this season is a third consecutive horse of the meet title at Remington Park. He will be looking to strengthen her case in Saturday night’s eighth race, a 6 1/2-furlong, no-conditions allowance race for fillies and mares bred in Oklahoma.

Miss Code West enters off back-to-back stakes wins at Remington. She won the Bob Barry Memorial on Sept. 12 and the Oklahoma Classics Night Distaff Turf on Oct. 17. In her other start this season at Remington, Miss Code West was second in an allowance sprint Aug. 16.

Free Like a Girl, who was a $500,000 buyback at a recent auction in Kentucky, is scheduled to return to Louisiana next week, according to co-owner and trainer Chasey Deville Pomier.

She said Free Like a Girl would likely ship into Delta Downs, but the stable also has a division at Fair Grounds.

“She’s coming home,” Deville Pomier said Tuesday. “We’re just taking it day by day and will see what we’re going to do with her.”

Racing’s blue-collar horses get their chance to sparkle, and horseplayers have big fields to pan for shiny scores as the Claiming Crown returns to Churchill Downs on Saturday.

The Claiming Crown, inaugurated in 1999 in partnership between the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, serves as a showcase for the modest horses who make up the majority of daily races around the country. It provides a “big day” experience for their owners.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Ohana Honor, still in search of his first career stakes victory, may be well-spotted to finally get it when he runs against seven rivals in Saturday’s $150,000 Knickerbocker Stakes at Aqueduct.

Plenty of supercharged starter-allowance purses this Saturday, with Churchill hosting the Claiming Crown, but limited stakes options.

Jockey Club Oaks

Handicappers can get caught in the trap of using speed figures to define a horse rather than letting the figures establish a range of possibility. Take a late-season 3-year-old with limited starts and the figures, rather than setting a ceiling on performance, might suggest a horse who can climb much higher.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The speedy Western Whirl has blossomed this year for trainer Stuart Simon and could land his first stakes in Saturday’s Grade 2, $175,000 Kennedy Road at Woodbine.

Western Whirl won a first-level allowance as a first-time gelding off a six-month layoff when negotiating the six-furlong distance of the Kennedy Road on June 8.

Explora, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies runner-up, is among the 10 fillies that trainer Bob Baffert nominated to the Starlet at Los Alamitos. Baffert stopped short of committing Explora to the race but said “She came out of [the Breeders’ Cup] very well. I have a bunch nominated” to the Starlet.

Baffert has won the last eight editions of the Starlet. In addition to Explora, his top nominees include Himika, who will be the odds-on favorite Sunday at Del Mar in the seven-furlong Desi Arnaz, and Bottle of Rouge, winner of the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante.

Trainer Michael McCarthy did not win a Breeders’ Cup race this year, but his horses all fired. Journalism finished fourth in the Classic; Formidable Man finished second in the Mile; Stark Contrast finished second in the Juvenile Turf; and second-time starter Meaning finished fourth in the Juvenile Fillies.

Journalism was still stabled at Santa Anita as of midweek, but he will ship out soon for a winter vacation. McCarthy said the Metropolitan Handicap is his first main objective for 2026. Formidable Man also is getting a break.

Hey Nay Nay, the John Sadler-trained colt who finished 10th in the BC Juvenile Turf, will be nominated to the Grade 3 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes on Nov. 30 at Del Mar.

“He came out really good, he’s a possible to go back in the” DeMille, Sadler said.

From a pace perspective, Hey Nay Nay did not have a good trip in the Juvenile Turf. He got caught up in a duel with Outfielder, who finished last. Hey Nay Nay hung tough to near midstretch before he faltered.

Full Serrano had excuses for finishing fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, a race he won a year ago. This year, things did not go his way. The 4-1 second betting choice, Full Serrano pressed blistering fractions and retreated on the far turn. He was unaccustomed to a severe pace – 44.96 seconds and 1:09.08 – and he also was compromised by a foot issue.

“He came out of it with a little bit of a [tender] left foot,” trainer John Sadler said. “I have to get that squared around and then we’ll figure out a campaign. We still believe in him.”