ARCADIA, Calif. – A spring of career landmarks continued for Umberto Rispoli Sunday at Santa Anita, where the jockey notched a six-win day on the final program of the track’s spring meeting.

Last month, Rispoli won his first American classic with Journalism in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes at Pimlico. Sunday was Rispoli’s most successful single day of riding since he relocated from Hong Kong in December 2019.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Sharp wins on Saturday at Santa Anita by the 3-year-old filly Thought Process in an allowance and the veteran gelding Motorious in the Grade 3 Daytona Stakes for turf sprinters have put the multiple stakes winners on course for stakes at the Del Mar summer meeting.

It will be back to square two for the very promising 3-year-old Grayscale, who won his debut so impressively last fall only to finish a distant and disappointing fifth making his second start earlier this winter in the Swale Stakes.

Grayscale will try allowance company for the first time in Thursday’s $57,000 headliner at Gulfstream Park, a 5 1/2-furlong allowance/optional-claiming dash for 3-year-olds that drew a field of seven, including Latch the Hatch, Lawler, and Midnight Boss, who are all coming into the race off one-sided victories.

Were it not for his pesky stablemates, the 4-year-old colt Illinois could be in the midst of a four-race winning streak in advance of Thursday’s Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup on the third of the five-day Royal Ascot meeting in England.

Illinois, trained by Aidan O’Brien for the Coolmore syndicate, was beaten a neck by Los Angeles in the Group 2 Great Voltigeur Stakes for 3-year-old stayers at York Racecourse last August and by the same margin by Jan Brueghel in the Group 1 St. Leger Stakes at 1 13/16 miles at Doncaster Racecourse last September.

Two days out and who knows what the $100,000 Get Serious will look like when the horses load into the starting gate Sunday afternoon at Monmouth Park.

Steal Sunshine will finally have the opportunity to get back on the grass for the first time since his career debut 3 1/2 years earlier when taking on six rivals going 1 1/16 miles on the turf in Sunday’s $58,000 main event. The race that is the penultimate leg of a Rainbow 6 that features a mandatory payout of the entire pool.

Crazy Mason may have had his three-race winning streak snapped in the Grade 3 True North Stakes, but he did not lose anything in defeat to his trainer, Gregg Sacco. Crazy Mason, who won the Grade 2 Carter in April, rallied from 14 lengths back to finish third, four lengths behind Book’em Danno, in the Grade 3 True North, run over a sloppy track.

“He ran a dynamite race, proud of him,” Sacco said. “It was very hard track to close on once they sealed it. He made up a lot of ground. Came back super.”

The fantastic week that Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez had in Saratoga during the five-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival helped him become the first rider in North America to surpass the $500 million mark in career earnings.

Velazquez, 53, was not as impressed as the number suggests he should. Following Thursday’s card at Aqueduct – where he won the first two races – Velazquez had amassed $500,310,277 in career earnings, according to Equibase. Javier Castellano is second in purse earnings with $408.2 million

It was 30 years ago when trainer Mac Robertson first showed up at Canterbury Park and won four races from 23 starts during the summer of 1995. He’s since become the kingpin of racing in Minnesota.

Robertson is Canterbury Park’s all-time leading trainer in local wins, with 1,105 through Thursday, and stable earnings, with more than $24 million. He’s won 141 stakes at Canterbury and in 2011 was inducted into the track’s Hall of Fame.