Hit Show debuted as an October 2-year-old in 2022 and made nine starts through September 2023 – including two Triple Crown races – without getting a break and without really losing his form.

Through a six-start 2024 campaign he ran at four different tracks, going on to race at a fifth venue in January 2025 before, at the end of a nine-start form cycle, winning the $12 million Dubai World Cup. Less than three months later, Hit Show returned to action, finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster and by year’s end had knocked out two more stakes.

Last year, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. shipped several of his top female runners to Delaware Park in search of vulnerable stakes fields. Haulin Ice is next in line to take the trip and should be an overwhelming favorite in the $100,000 Rehoboth Stakes on Saturday.

“They have quite a bit of stakes at Delaware, and the last couple of years, we try to run them,” Joseph said. “I feel like it’s a good spot to get her back on track and then hopefully lead to something bigger down the line.”

Pin Up Betty rarely misses the board on the Churchill Downs turf course, and she certainly had her excuses finishing third here on Kentucky Derby weekend. But if she is to repeat last year’s win in the Grade 3, $275,000 Mint Julep Stakes on Saturday in Louisville, she will have to face another local stakes winner, Proctor Street, who defeated her here last fall – as well as graded stakes winners Charlene’s Dream and Medoro, who seem to take their form wherever they go.

The betting market can’t quite seem to wrap what passes for a collective brain around this fact: Mad House is a very fast high-level sprinter.

In September, he won the Grade 2 Gallant Bob, his fourth straight open-lengths victory, at 23-1. In November, Mad House brought forth a red herring, 14th at 31-1 in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, which helped boost his price to 9-1 when, on April 11, Mad House captured the Grade 3 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap at Oaklawn Park.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine’s new $5 minimum pick three, with a 15 percent takeout, on select multi-stakes days begins Saturday and encompasses the three graded events on the card – the Belle Mahone, Eclipse, and Jacques Cartier.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Awesome Bourbon comes off a winter layoff looking for his first stakes success in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Jacques Cartier at Woodbine.

Trained by Abraham Katryan, Awesome Bourbon was an astute $35,000 claim by owner Carlo D’Amato at Gulfstream in 2024. The 6-year-old reached full bloom last year, during which he won four of 10 starts under a variety of conditions. He lacked room in the stretch last time out Nov. 15 under Pietro Moran before ending up third and subsequently promoted to second by disqualification in the Grade 3 Kennedy Road on the Tapeta.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The familiar names attempting to rejuvenate the female dirt division Saturday at Santa Anita include a high-profile Grade 1 winner who has not raced in nearly seven months and a Grade 3 winner who has not raced in seven days.

Saturday’s seventh race at Emerald Downs, a 5 1/2-furlong first-level allowance for 3-year-olds, features a trio of local stakes winners. Ole’s Surprise and Chase are not among them, but the former Hastings-based geldings may well be the ones to beat.

The last time the span between Minaret Station’s races could be measured in weeks, not months, was during his 2-year-old season, as he followed a second-out maiden victory with a win in the Grade 2 Bourbon Stakes on Oct. 6, 2024, at Keeneland.

Percy’s Bar had her first work since racing in the Kentucky Oaks when she breezed a half-mile May 24 at Keeneland – but toward what end, trainer Ben Colebrook isn’t yet certain.

Colebrook said the Grade 1 Acorn on June 5 at Saratoga is under consideration, but it sounds like Percy’s Bar could instead show up in the Monomoy Girl a week later at Churchill Downs.