Defending race winners I Recall, I Wanna Win, and Dougie D Oro highlight the fields in stakes for older horses on the Best of Ohio statebred showcase card Saturday at Thistledown, with five stakes worth a combined $500,000.

Whatwasithinking is the obvious horse to beat in Saturday’s $3,500 starter-allowance feature over six furlongs at Emerald Downs.

The eve of the Longacres Mile features a seven-race card with a feature that brings together a field of six geldings.

The group is headed by 13-time winner Whatwasithinking, trained by Justin Evans. Whatwasithinking has banked $187,888 during his 34-race career and is coming off a romping win at the $2,500 claiming level.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Summertime fillies whose careers have barely started begin to sort themselves out Saturday in the Grade 3 Sorrento Stakes at Del Mar.

The favorites in the season’s first graded stakes for 2-year-olds in California each has just one career start – debut winners Benedetta, Dreamfyre, and Dua. Based on speed figures, they all look the same. They might look a little different after the six-furlong Sorrento, race 6 on Saturday.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Though Americanrevolution ended his 3-year-old season in 2021 as a Grade 1 winner, his connections felt the son of Constitution still had more to accomplish.

It didn’t happen last year as Americanrevolution went winless in three starts, including a runner-up finish to Olympiad in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup. Myriad minor issues have kept Americanrevolution away from the races for 11 months, a respite that ends Friday with his return in the $125,000 Evan Shipman Stakes for New York-breds at Saratoga.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Dave O’Rourke, president and CEO of the New York Racing Association, said Wednesday his organization “dropped the ball” when it came to its handling of the timing of the announcement to take three races off the turf on Sunday at Saratoga and apologized to horseplayers for not being able to refund money wagered in multiple-race pools such as the late pick five.

Steal Sunshine is scheduled to work over the weekend at Gulfstream Park for an intended start in the Grade 3, $250,000 Philip H. Iselin at Monmouth Park, trainer Bobby Dibona said Wednesday.

The Iselin is a 1 1/16-mile race on Aug. 19.

Steal Sunshine has won stakes races at distances of seven furlongs to a mile. He is coming off a runner-up finish in the $60,000 Bill Kaplan Memorial, a 1 1/16-mile overnight handicap July 2 at his base of Gulfstream Park.

Refocus, the promising California-bred colt trained by Doug O’Neill, is likely to be near the lead early in Friday’s $125,000 Graduation Stakes for 2-year-old statebred sprinters at Del Mar.

“He’s got gate speed,” O’Neill said on Wednesday. “I’d like to see him forwardly placed. Sometimes, that’s you’re hope – that he has a little better speed than the others.”

The problem for O’Neill is that there are several other quick runners, leaving the Graduation an open race with several contenders in a field of eight.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine’s inner turf horse-for-course angle comes into play in Friday’s nightcap on an eight-race card, a 1 1/16-mile event combining starters for a claiming price of $7,500 or less in 2022-23 with $15,000 claimers.

Lion Kingdom is the most obvious horse-for-course in the 10-horse field. The 7-year-old gelding narrowly won back-to-back two-turn inner-turf tilts in June, both under Omar Moreno. His overall form on the inner layout is better if you ignore his starts in marathons that were part of the 2022 Woodbine Turf Endurance Series.

Alleva appears a tepid favorite in a speed-laden field in Friday’s six-furlong, $15,000 claiming feature at Emerald Downs.

Just six runners are entered, but a trio of those have never won without having the lead at every call. That means the early fractions could be torrid on the fast dirt surface.

The demise of Arlington Park hit trainer Michele Boyce’s barn like a ton of bricks. A fixture on the Chicago circuit for more than 30 years, Boyce was worried about the fate of her stable back in 2021, well before Arlington was closed. She set up a string last year at Horseshoe Indianapolis but won just two races from 17 starters there. This year, back at Hawthorne, Boyce began slowly again. Midway through the June 22 card, she had only three winners from 39 starters, but since losing with her first runner that day, Boyce has gone 15-5-3-4.