Saffie Joseph Jr. may be 1,400 miles away overseeing his “A” string at Saratoga, but his presence will continue to remain a threatening one nonetheless this summer at Gulfstream Park. Saturday, the meet’s leading trainer sends out horses in eight of the 11 races on the card, including a pair of key contenders in the afternoon’s two main events, the $75,000 Game Face for 3-year-old fillies and the $75,000 Powder Break, which lured an evenly matched field of 11 older fillies and mares on turf.

Lush Lips has chased home Nitrogen, the leader of the 3-year-old turf filly division, in her two most recent starts. Keeping that company makes Lush Lips a standout in the Grade 3, $275,000 Regret Stakes for the division Saturday at Churchill Downs.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario—The Kevin Attard-trained Canadian champions Caitlinhergrtness and Fashionably Fab will clash over 1 1/16 miles Saturday at Woodbine in the Grade 3, $150,000 Belle Mahone Stakes.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The popular Patches O’Houlihan made a triumphant return to the races in his May 4 season opener at Woodbine, winning the Thorncliffe Stakes in track-record time with a whopping 108 Beyer Speed Figure. The reigning Canadian Horse of the Year will be a short price in a four-horse field in the the Grade 3, $150,000 Jacques Cartier, the opening race on Saturday’s four-stakes card at Woodbine.

After racing Quarter Horses in his native Mexico, jockey Manuel Americano arrived, ready to ride, at Pleasanton at the end of spring 2023. He would go on to pick up 30 mounts at four different Northern California tracks over the next six months, winning none of them.

Americano, who hails from Guadalajara, was undaunted as he stayed at Golden Gate Fields to start his 2024 campaign.

“I just kept pushing forward,” Americano, now 24, said with the help of a translator. “It didn’t discourage me at all. I felt like I could keep moving forward.”

Brilliant Berti won three in a row last May and June on the Churchill turf course and made it four wins from four Churchill grass starts finishing with a flourish to capture the May 1 Opening Verse Stakes. Saturday, in the $250,000 Arlington Stakes, Brilliant Berti – the 7-2 second choice on the morning line behind Mercante at 3-1 – probably will be favored, if only moderately, to go 5 for 5.

The $275,000 Aristides Stakes is a Grade 3 race that has attracted a couple of entrants with Grade 1 ambitions.

Five-year-old Skelly never has won a Grade 1, in great part because there exist in America so few of them for older horses over six furlongs. But he absolutely has Grade 1 credentials: 12 wins from 21 starts, almost $2 million in earnings, Beyer Speed Figures as high as any horse around.