Sierra Leone, the champion 3-year-old of 2024 and winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, had his first timed workout this year on Jan. 6. Yet when he starts Saturday at Churchill Downs in the Grade 1, $1 million Stephen Foster Stakes, the year half over, Sierra Leone races for only the second time as a 4-year-old.

After a foot abscess halted an intended February trip for the $20 million Saudi Cup, Sierra Leone made his 2025 bow March 22 in the New Orleans Classic. Favored at 3-10, Sierra Leone never traveled like a winner, finishing a tepid third.

Mrs. Gambolini will be breaking from the rail for the first time in her career Saturday, when she starts as the 124-pound highweight in the $70,000 Portofino Bay at Gulfstream Park.

The overnight handicap for fillies and mares will be run at 5 1/2 furlongs on Tapeta. It goes as the eighth race on an 11-race card that begins at 12:50 p.m. Eastern.

Mrs. Gambolini is 3 for 5 in her career, but the closest the sprinter has been to the rail is post 5.

The unbeaten Homie has two trainers on his bandwagon heading into Saturday night’s $50,000 Canterbury Park Derby. Larry Rivelli will saddle the son of Mendelssohn for Patricia’s Hope LLC, while fellow trainer Wesley Ward is the breeder of the runner, who is 2 for 2.

“We bought him off of Wesley,” Rivelli said. “Wesley’s one of my best buddies for 25 years. Homie’s a horse he bred and owned and I watched him run first time out and said, ‘Why don’t you sell this one to me?’ And he said, ‘Okay.’ It was that easy. It was just a handshake.”

Trainer Brittany Russell is keeping Mid-Atlantic star Post Time close to home in the $125,000 Deputed Testamony Stakes on Saturday at Laurel Park. Bringing the 5-year-old horse back to Maryland is part of a strategy to keep him in the winner’s circle while he rounds into form.

“The goal for us this year is to just keep him winning,” Russell said. “Looking at his schedule and what’s available, we know he likes it at home.”

Things did not end well when Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen sent out odds-on favorite Skelly in the most recent older-horse dirt sprint stakes at Churchill Downs, the Aristides on May 31. One-way speed horse Skelly, coming off a couple sharp Oaklawn Park wins, hooked into a brutal speed duel and faded to sixth, and Asmussen harbors some concern that Booth could meet a similar fate Saturday at Churchill in the Grade 3, $250,000 Kelly’s Landing, a 6 1/2-furlong dirt sprint.

Trainer Ned Allard is hoping for an encore performance from Dean Delivers in the $175,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash on Saturday at Laurel Park. Last year, the gelding kicked clear on the front end to earn a three-quarter-length victory.

The pace, or relative lack of it, could be key to the outcome of the $125,000 Ashley T. Cole Stakes, which will be decided at six furlongs on turf as the third event on an 11-race program Saturday at Aqueduct.

The Cole is restricted to New York-breds and lured a very evenly matched field of five turf sprint specialists, plus four main-track-only entrants. The 48-hour weather forecast calls for a 65 percent chance of rain on Saturday.

Vixen comes into Saturday’s $250,000 Tepin Stakes at Churchill Downs having been chasing a pretty good filly called Nitrogen around. Her connections know a little something about her.

Soleil Volant has not needed victories to become a stakes runner, improving in five straight starts for trainer Graham Motion without a trip to the winner’s circle. The 3-year-old gelding has not won a race since prevailing in a maiden special weight in August, but Motion still likes his chances in the $100,000 Tale of the Cat Stakes at Monmouth Park on Saturday.

“This horse surprises me every time I run him,” Motion said. “He always seems to improve, and I think his last race was a really solid effort.”

The colts Nevada Beach and Varney and the new gelding Tiz Secure give Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert an outstanding chance to continue his stranglehold on the $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby on Saturday.

Baffert has won the last eight runnings of the Los Alamitos Derby and has three of the five runners on Saturday in a race that has annually struggled for entries. The race has drawn four or five runners each year since 2018.