SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Bob Baffert hasn’t ruled out shipping Muth to Saratoga for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes.

Baffert said he planned to nominate both Muth and Parenting to the Travers, but indicated Wednesday that he’d be more inclined to keep Parenting home in California for the Pacific Classic on Aug. 31. Muth hasn’t run since winning the Arkansas Derby on March 30. He was entered in but scratched from the Preakness on May 17 due to a fever. Muth has been working steadily since mid-June.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Mindframe, runner-up in the Belmont Stakes and Haskell, will be sidelined for the rest of the summer and early fall due to bone bruising, co-owner Mike Repole said Wednesday.

Additionally, Repole also said he is now leaning toward running Fierceness, the Grade 2 Jim Dandy winner, in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes here on Aug. 24.

Jockey Drayden Van Dyke moved his tack across the country in June and has made significant inroads the last few months at Gulfstream Park.

Van Dyke ranks eighth in the Royal Palm meet standings with 22 wins from 81 starts. His 27 percent win rate is tops among the leading riders at the meet, which began in early April.

Van Dyke said the transition from Southern California to South Florida has gone well as the 29-year-old works to build his local business ahead of this winter’s Championship meet at Gulfstream.

The first turf racing in nearly two months in Northern California may help the Sonoma county fair in Santa Rosa continue a modest trend of increased field sizes on the state’s fair circuit when the track’s three-week season begins on Friday.

Santa Rosa is the only track in Northern California with a turf course, following the permanent closure of Golden Gate Fields in Albany on June 9.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – With five wins in his last six starts on turf, each of those victories a little more impressive and important than the one before, Neat figures to be a deserving favorite when he faces seven other 3-year-olds going one mile over the inner turf in Friday’s $500,000 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Four-race win streaks are not unusual for one horse. But two prominent horses both seeking their fifth straight wins on the same Del Mar card help make Friday’s program unique.

In race 1, an allowance sprint on turf and race 6, a dirt sprint stakes, the favorites are rolling. Man O Rose seeks his fifth straight in the turf race after a sharp win at Santa Anita in 1:06.88, the fastest six-furlong turf race of the winter-spring season. Man O Rose faces Unconquerable Keen on Friday in a prep for the Grade 3 Green Flash Handicap over the same course Aug. 31.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mark Casse sends out two of the six fillies and mares in Friday’s Woodbine feature. Cahira’s Blessing will be winging it up front under apprentice Sofia Vives, while Lady Onyx should be in mid-pack under Patrick Husbands in the conditioned allowance with a $50,000 claiming option.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The juggernaut that is the Charlie Appleby-Godolphin team is expected to continue its successful 2024 stint in the United States on Friday when Cinderella’s Dream heads the field entered in the Grade 2, $400,000 Saratoga Oaks Invitational scheduled for 1 3/16 miles over the outer turf course.

Seven were entered in the Oaks, but on Wednesday trainer Chad Brown said Segesta, runner-up to Cinderella’s Dream in the Belmont Oaks held July 6 at Aqueduct, is going to scratch due to a bruised foot.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – “From the outset, the Kentucky Derby has been great theater,” Daily Racing Form columnist Joe Hirsch wrote in May 2003. “H.P. McGrath’s Chesapeake was considered the one to beat in that first Derby on May 17, 1875, but broke poorly and never gained position. Fortunately for McGrath and the backers of his stable, McGrath had a pacemaker in the race. Aristides broke alertly, went to the front, and remained there most of the way to win by two lengths. The Little Red Horse was the toast of the turf.”

Holy Tutta Bella seems to have the best chance in Friday’s $10,000 claiming feature for fillies and mares over 6 1/2 furlongs at Emerald Downs. Just six passed the entry box and they comprise a group with a pace scenario that handicappers will need to sort out in their minds.