After taking a solid swing against open company when second in the Grade 3, $400,000 Oklahoma Derby last month, 3-year-old Iron Dome returns to New York-bred competition when he starts as the likely favorite in Saturday’s $250,000 Empire Classic at Aqueduct.

The Empire Classic is one of nine stakes and 11 races overall restricted to New York-breds on Empire Showcase Day. The total purses for the stakes – which include the inaugural running of the $200,000 New York Turf Sprint Championship – are $1.9 million. Total purses distributed on the card are $2.01 million.

The Keeneland fall meet has been prime time for Not This Time. Already in the midst of a career year, the stallion is the sire of four graded stakes winners at the meet. He can add to his total on closing day as he is, improbably, the sire of seven of the 12 projected runners in Saturday’s Grade 3, $600,000 Bryan Station Stakes for 3-year-olds on the turf.

A week before some of the best runners in the world gather at the Breeders’ Cup, collections of some of the best horses in various statebred programs will gather in showcase programs around the country. Nine stakes for New York-breds make up a massive card on Saturday at Aqueduct, while Indiana-breds get a star turn with six stakes in their home state.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Test Score shipped from Maryland to California looking for a shorter trip. As an added bonus, the Grade 1 winner will face the smallest field of his career on Saturday at Santa Anita.

Only five are entered in the Grade 2, $200,000 Twilight Derby, a 1 1/8-mile turf race for 3-year-olds in which Test Score is the class of the field and odds-on program favorite. Although the race has minimal wagering appeal, it is more attractive than the first stakes race on Saturday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Off a blowout score over five furlongs, Little Teddy will test her mettle around two turns on the inner turf against an accomplished field of Ontario-sired females in Saturday’s $100,000 Eternal Search Stakes at Woodbine.

As the picture for the Breeders’ Cup began to come into focus with Wednesday’s release of pre-entries, the stallion rosters for 2026 are also becoming clearer.

Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky released its roster of stallions and stud fees for 2026 on Wednesday, and it has an argument for the strongest list of newcomers in the country. Taking up residence in the stud barn following their respective Breeders’ Cup races will be Sierra Leone, Fierceness, and Citizen Bull – all already Breeders’ Cup winners and Eclipse Award champions.

The winner of the $12 million Dubai World Cup, run this past April 5, races Saturday at Keeneland. The morning line lists him at 6-1, almost twice the price of a stablemate who has never won above the Grade 3 level, which says a lot about this year’s World Cup and something, too, about the Fayette Stakes.

In a bid to win the race for a second consecutive year, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. considered a trio of 4-year-old fillies for this year’s Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint before landing on a single runner. Getting the Florida-based filly Haulin Ice into the race should have been straightforward for the trainer, but he and the owners only decided to take the trip after a month of intense organizing.

A couple of 3-year-old fillies who know each other quite well, R Morning Brew and Win N Your In, will meet for a fourth time while among the key contenders in a compact but talented field slated to go six furlongs in Friday’s main event at Gulfstream Park. The race is the first of three optional-claiming and allowance races on a card that also includes a pair of five-furlong turf sprints restricted to Florida-breds.

At the time of Myrtlewood’s retirement, Daily Racing Form wrote that the future Hall of Fame filly had “raced herself into the position of being one of the finest of her sex ever to sport silks.”

Myrtlewood is, thus, among Thoroughbreds honored with a race in their name – and it’s fitting that her namesake race is a $250,000 sprint for 2-year-old fillies on Friday at Keeneland. Not only was Myrtlewood fleet-footed, but she won three races during Keeneland’s inaugural 1936 fall racing meet of nine days.