OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Much in the manner Ways and Means was a heavy favorite in last Sunday’s Grade 2 Gallant Bloom for female sprinters, Raging Sea looms an exceptionally short-priced favorite in this Sunday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Beldame Stakes for female routers at Aqueduct.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The field as drawn for the $250,000 Indian Summer Stakes Sunday on the Keeneland turf, a key springboard into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, will have some changes, with three stakes winners emerging as the primary candidates in what should still be a full gate.

Chasing Liberty, coming off a win by disqualification in the Juvenile Sprint at Kentucky Downs, was cross-entered in the Grade 3 Futurity on Friday at Aqueduct, but was scratched to run on Sunday at Keeneland instead.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – As disappointing as she was in her first two starts is as impressive as Flirting With Time was when she won her maiden at Kentucky Downs on Aug. 29.

A duplication of that performance puts Flirting With Time right in the mix of a seemingly wide-open renewal of Sunday’s Grade 3, $175,000 Matron Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Aqueduct. The Matron, scheduled for six furlongs on turf, is the last of three stakes on a nine-race card that includes the Grade 2 Beldame and Grade 2 Miss Grillo.

Three races into her career, the 2-year-old filly Thought Process performs more like a veteran in racing and training.

“She acts like an older horse,” trainer Phil D’Amato said. “She goes out there without a pony. She gets into a nice gallop and does what we want to do. She doesn’t act like a 2-year-old.”

Winner of the Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf on Sept. 7 in her stakes debut, Thought Process will be favored to win her third consecutive start in Sunday’s Grade 3 Surfer Girl Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at a mile on turf at Santa Anita.

Fallen Angel proved to be a fighter when she finished a game second by a length in the Group 1 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown Racecourse in Ireland on Sept. 14.

In her first start since May, Fallen Angel set the pace and tried to keep up in the final strides with the four-time Group 1 winner Porta Fortuna.

French racing’s loss is American racing’s gain.

Europe’s brightest star, the Ireland-based City of Troy, in a different world would be headed to Paris this weekend for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Instead, City of Troy departs later this month for California, taking his talents to dirt in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Former Florida sire Battalion Runner has gotten some extra attention this year thanks to his son Rated by Merit, who has emerged as a leading Florida-bred juvenile of this season. But breeders in the Sunshine State can’t respond to that success by sending mares to the sire of the moment.

“Before Rated by Merit won, we had some interest from a farm in South America, and they sold the horse to a farm in Uruguay,” Ocala Stud’s David O’Farrell told Gulfstream Park. “He actually has been exported to Uruguay.”

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Kevin Attard has a lot on his plate these days. Moira and Full Count Felicia are being pointed to the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar. King’s Plate winner Caitlinhergrtness has been working her way toward a start in the U.S., possibly the Grade 2 Sands Point at Aqueduct Oct. 12.

Attard sends out Dewolf and Faber in Sunday’s 87th running of the $250,000 Cup and Saucer Stakes, a main turf route for Canadian-bred 2-year-olds at Woodbine.

Giocoso turned in a commendable performance Sept. 14 in the Iroquois Stakes, a one-turn dirt mile at Churchill Downs, middle-moving into contention before losing steam and checking in third of 11. A strapping brute of a colt, Giocoso seems better suited racing around two turns than one. He might eventually find himself sniffing around the Kentucky Derby trail. For this fall, though, Giocoso campaigns as a grass horse.

Small consolation to the people associated with the animal, but it takes a special, versatile horse to lose a Grade 1 race by a head after being caught wide and too far behind a slow tempo, and then lose another Grade 1 by a head after dueling on a torrid pace.

So the summer went for the champion mare Idiomatic, who came out on the right side of a tight finish in the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher in July, but on the wrong side of one in the Ogden Phipps in June and the Personal Ensign in August.