An up-and-coming prospect from Southern California, a multiple Grade 3 winner from Western Canada, and a capable Gun Runner colt working in Oklahoma will clash in New Mexico on Tuesday in the $300,000 Zia Park Derby.

The 1 1/16-mile race is one of seven open-company stakes worth a total of $1.1 million on the track’s annual Land of Enchantment Day. The card includes the $300,000 Zia Park Oaks.

The Zia Derby drew 10 runners, but eight are expected to start after Generous Tipper, winner of the Discovery last out at Aqueduct, and Awesome Road were scratched from the race. 

What’s the difference between a no-conditions $148,000 allowance race and a graded stakes race? Not too much.

Four of the dozen entrants in featured race 9 Sunday at Churchill Downs made their most recent start in graded company. Eleven ran in a graded race sometime in their last four starts. And the 12th member of the cast, Run Carson, exits a win in the ungraded $135,000 Carle Place at Aqueduct.

Epic Ride’s past performances are peppered with some of the biggest names of the 3-year-old division, routing and sprinting. A stakes winner earlier this season at Turfway Park, the colt was third in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes to eventual Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Sierra Leone, with Seize the Grey seventh. Epic Ride went on to finish 14th in the Kentucky Derby; two weeks later, Seize the Grey won the Preakness.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The seven horses entered in Sunday’s third-level allowance/optional-claiming feature at Aqueduct have combined to go 3 for 46 in 2024, meaning handicappers are going to have to be quite forgiving on the last card here until after Thanksgiving.

Perhaps this spot offers Tabeguache a chance to break his eight-race losing streak since he won the St. Louis Derby in August 2023. Tabegauache is coming off a decent third-place finish behind Law Professor going 1 1/8 miles on Oct. 25 and now cuts back to one mile for trainer Brad Cox.

The new millionaire Corrina Corrina and the near-millionaire Thunder Dome can both hit significant milestones in New Mexico Cup stakes Monday at Zia Park.

Corrina Corrina would move into second place on the all-time earnings list among New Mexico-bred Thoroughbreds with a win in the $150,000 Distaff and Thunder Dome has a chance to reach $1 million in earnings as he chases after a fourth win in the $200,000 Rocky Gulch Classic.

Given that favorites almost never win the Grade 3 Red Carpet Stakes, one could argue Forever After All is up against it in the turf marathon for fillies and mares Sunday at Del Mar.

The counter argument is Forever After All’s last start stamps her a potential standout despite recent history of the stakes. Since the first Del Mar autumn meet in 2014, Red Carpet favorites are 1 for 10 and half the winners paid more than $20.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mark Casse entered the talented fillies Patriotic War and French Horn against the boys in Sunday’s $150,000 Clarendon Stakes, a six-furlong test for Ontario-bred and Ontario-sired juveniles.

Patriotic War is cross-entered in Saturday’s $150,000 Shady Well Stakes for fillies. The daughter of freshman sire and Preakness victor War of Will led all the way under Ryan Munger in her Nov. 2 debut, a six-furlong maiden special, scoring by three lengths with a 77 Beyer Speed Figure.

The annual post-Breeders’ Cup lull has descended over the North American racing landscape. Yet the winners still pay the same as we await more important stakes racing over the next couple off weeks in Kentucky and New York.

Native Diver

Who ranks as the best older dirt horse with considerable racing experience still eligible for a first-level allowance? Skinner comes to mind.

Copper Tax, unbeaten in three starts at Laurel Park, faces elders for the first time in the Richard W. Small for 3-year-olds and upward at 1 1/8 miles. The Small is one of three $100,000 stakes on the Saturday program.

Trained by Gary Capuano, Copper Tax reeled off victories in Laurel’s Private Terms and Federico Tesio during the spring.

Two months after the Tesio, Copper Tax ran third in the Grade 3 Ohio Derby. Freshened for over four months, he then placed third in the Discovery at Aqueduct.

Rarely does a horse exit a blowout victory and get an equipment change, but after winning a Keeneland first-level allowance by 6 1/4 lengths last month, Two Sharp returns to stakes competition Saturday racing for the first time in blinkers.

Bettors probably won’t view that or Two Sharp’s first start beyond 6 1/2 furlongs as an impediment to her winning the Grade 3, $300,000 Chilukki Stakes at Churchill Downs. Listed as the 2-1 morning-line favorite, Two Sharp figures to go off a meaningfully shorter price than that in this one-turn mile.