The build-up is already well under way toward the respective 150th editions of the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks next May. But officially, the prep racing toward those classics gets started on Saturday, right where those journeys will come to an end 33 weeks later as Churchill Downs cards the Grade 3, $300,000 Iroquois Stakes and its sister race the Grade 3, $300,000 Pocahontas Stakes.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – If the stakes schedule for the 2023-24 Gulfstream Park championship meet, released Thursday, looks familiar, it should. The program nearly mirrors the schedule from last winter, highlighted once again by the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational and the $1 million Florida Derby.

The Championship meet will kick off three weeks earlier than a year ago, on Dec. 1, and run through March 31. A new turf course, currently scheduled to open in December, has been installed and will host 38 stakes, weather permitting.

Unbeaten in four starts this year, Famous Shining Star can clinch the 2023 championship for older Quarter Horse fillies and mares with a win in Saturday’s $125,000 Mildred Vessels Memorial Handicap at Los Alamitos.

The Vessels Memorial Handicap, run for fillies and mares at 400 yards, is the track’s richest race for older females, worth slightly more than two $100,000 races at 400 yards earlier in the year – the Charger Bar Handicap in January and the Abigail Kawananakoa Stakes in June.

Hastings hosts its most important race of the season Saturday, the Grade 3, $125,000 British Columbia Derby, in which Sunbird will try to make amends after suffering his first career defeat in the Canadian Derby on Aug. 26 at Century Mile.

The Terry Jordan trainee is 3 for 3 at Hastings. His lightly raced status hints that he has more upside potential than most of his rivals.

Le Da Vida was three-quarters of a length better than Search Results at 10 times the price when the mares finished second and third July 22 at Monmouth Park, and while the odds gap will narrow Saturday at Churchill Downs, Le Da Vida surely is the better value in the Grade 3 Locust Grove Stakes.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Stakes winner Airosa is one of several cross-entered in the Grade 1 Natalma for fillies and the Grade 1 Summer on Saturday’s Woodbine Mile undercard. Both are Lasix-free, $500,000 mile turf races for 2-year-olds that are Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In qualifiers.

Airosa graduated in her second start in front-running style when switching from Tapeta to turf. She rallied inside from fourth to beat a good group of fillies most recently in the 6 1/2-furlong Catch a Glimpse Stakes on the main turf.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Peter Fluor and K.C. Weiner’s Speedway Stable, with Marette Farrell acting as agent, made the most of a second opportunity to acquire a daughter of leading young sire Gun Runner they fancied. They were the underbidders last fall, when Dell Ennis purchased the weanling filly for $625,000 at the Fasig-Tipton November sale.

“We followed her and saw her here,” Farrell said of the filly.

Speedway had to stretch even further in the September yearling market, but wasn’t missing out, as Farrell signed the $1.2 million ticket Tuesday.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – In her first trip to the Keeneland September yearling sale since taking the helm of the international operation founded by her late father, Sheikha Hissa Hamdan Al Maktoum purchased four yearlings in the name of Shadwell Racing over the first days of the auction, led by a $2.3 million Into Mischief filly.

“She’s such a smart person, she’s very much like her father,” Keeneland vice president of sales Tony Lacy said. “Very passionate, very intelligent, very well educated in pedigrees and form lines. . . . She knows exactly what she’s doing.”

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Special Me is an aptly named broodmare. Not only is she in rare air as the dam of two Grade 1 winners, she also has produced a pair of Grade 2 winners to go with them. The special mare continued to knock it out of the park for her longtime residence, Craig and Carrie Brogden’s Machmer Hall, with a $1.2 million Into Mischief colt sold to Coolmore on Tuesday at Keeneland.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Carrie Brogden, standing alongside her mother, Sandy Fubini. “I had no idea he was going to bring that much money. Personally, that is our most expensive yearling.”

Leprino figures to get lots of early pace to chase in Saturday’s $10,000 claiming feature over one mile at Emerald Downs.

No stranger to the lead going two turns himself, Leprino has more recently evolved to have a midpack style that should serve him well in this speed-laden event.

The Debbie Peery trainee has been lightly raced this season, having started just four times at the stand. He collected a win on July 9 in a 6 1/2-furlong starter allowance but has raced just once since.