Success can be as simple as finding the right situation in the proper location. And while the sample size is admittedly small, veteran Thoroughbred trainer Ian Jewell appears to have found just such a sweet spot at Emerald Downs.

In 1991, Jewell was a young trainer with a lone horse, Just Sailing, whom he entered in a dozen races at Exhibition Park (now Hastings) and Sandown Park in his native British Columbia. The horse, and Jewell, went 0 for 12.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Obliteration and Ewing were dominant winners about an hour apart on the July 5 card at Saratoga, the former winning the Grade 3 Sanford Stakes by 10 1/2 lengths, the latter a maiden race by 12. Saturday, the two impressive juvenile males go head-to-head in the Grade 2, $200,000 Saratoga Special, a 6 1/2-furlong dirt race and the first of five stakes to be run on Saturday’s blockbuster Whitney Day program.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Given that Kings River Knight’s recent victory was the lowest-rated stakes win of his career but his eighth overall, horseplayers face a dilemma Saturday at Del Mar.

Kings River Knight is favored against 10 statebreds in the $150,000 California Dreamin’ Stakes at a mile and a sixteenth on turf. But what to make of his grinding victory in the Bertrando Stakes on June 21 at Los Alamitos?

Kings River Knight started at 3-10, won by only a length and a quarter, and earned a mere 89 Beyer Speed Figure, one which matched the humdrum visual impression.

ETOBIOKE, Ontario – Paramount Prince will try to win the $150,000 Seagram Cup for the second year in a row Saturday at Woodbine against another 2024 Canadian champion, the probable favorite Dresden Row.

Trained by Mark Casse, Paramount Prince has an impressive résumé. He led all the way in the 2023 King’s Plate, the same year he was voted Canadian champion male 3-year-old. Last year, he won the Sovereign Award for champion older male on the main track.

Four of the nine 3-year-olds entered in Saturday’s renewal of the Grade 1, $750,000 Saratoga Derby ran in the July 4 Belmont Derby, including Test Score, the decisive winner. But that doesn’t mean coming up with the winner is easy. The eclectic lineup includes local runners, all of whom have potential vulnerabilities; some familiar names from the Kentucky Derby trail; and a trio of international travelers, including the morning-line favorite.

The Kentucky Downs Preview Nashville Derby on Saturday at Ellis Park might be worth only $250,000 compared to the weekend’s other stakes for 3-year-olds on the turf – the Grade 2, $400,000 National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame on Friday at Saratoga and the Grade 1, $750,000 Saratoga Derby the following day. However, those playing the long game with their sophomores could be richly rewarded.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Thorpedo Anna, the reigning Horse of the Year, had her first local work since arriving from Kentucky three weeks ago, going a half-mile in 50.60 seconds on Tuesday over the Oklahoma training track.

It was Thorpedo Anna’s first work since she won the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis at Churchill Downs on June 28. She is pointing to the Grade 1 Personal Ensign here on Aug. 23.

“I told him to go 48-and-change so they went a little slow but she galloped out real strong, came out of it good, didn’t take a sip of water afterwards,” trainer Kenny McPeek said.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Scottish Lassie, the 15 1/2-length winner of the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks on July 19, will skip the Alabama on Aug. 16 and instead make her next start in the Grade 1, $1 million Cotillion at Parx on Sept. 20, trainer Jorge Abreu said Wednesday.

Abreu said the Alabama is “too soon, too quick back for her. We’re going to go to the Cotillion.”

Abreu added that the CCA Oaks came back a fast race on multiple speed figures and “I don’t want her to bounce off that race,” he said. “Time is everything.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – That Todd Pletcher was tied atop the trainer standings through the first three weeks of the Saratoga meet can be largely attributed to the early success he’s had with his 2-year-old class.

Staying true to his name, 4-year-old gelding Sticky McShnickens seems to be making up the rules as he goes along. After 12 career starts, trainer Joe Orseno still doesn’t understand everything about his hard-knocking Florida-bred, but he knows he has a fast horse.

On Friday, Sticky McShnickens will stretch out to a mile on turf in a $43,000 statebred allowance at Gulfstream Park. He has not run in a route since April and seems to be settling in as a sprinter, but Orseno said that trying a longer distance was the best alternative.