ARCADIA, Calif. – Ian Kruljac has won four races as a trainer, all with Finest City. The latest and easily the most important victory came Saturday when Finest City ran the race of her life – as Kruljac had promised – when pulling an 8-1 upset in the $1 million Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita.

ARCADIA, Calif. – As he watched the horses run away from the gate in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, trainer Mark Casse said he couldn’t find his horse.

“Did he come out?” wondered Casse, who was not looking toward the front of the 11-horse field.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Bob Baffert appeared to be holding a pretty strong hand when entries were drawn Monday for the $1.5 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint, with two of the top contenders in the field, including potential favorite Lord Nelson. But Baffert’s chances of winning his fifth Sprint title suffered a major blow several days later when he was compelled to scratch Lord Nelson due to an infection.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Queen’s Trust had only one victory in seven starts and on paper seemed a bit out of place in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

But trainer Michael Stoute knew his horse had legitimate excuses when placing in three Group 1 stakes in Europe, and he very much wanted to run in the Filly and Mare Turf.  He just needed to convince owners Patricia and David Thompson that a transatlantic trip was the proper thing to do.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Champagne Room was largely overlooked prior to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, and why not? With just a single victory from four starts, albeit a Grade 2 stakes at Del Mar, she was one of the lesser-accomplished of the 12 starters in the 1 1/16-mile race.

ARCADIA, Calif. – A champion mare produced a storybook ending to an amazing five-year career Friday at Santa Anita.

Beholder, the 6-year-old making her 26th and final start in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff, wore down the previously undefeated Songbird in a stretch-long street fight to win by a nose in a race for the ages.

Bob Traynor, a 55-year-old packaging sales rep from Oceanside, Calif., is in the lead at the end of Day 1 of the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge. Traynor, who won the event in 2014 when it was held at Santa Anita, sits in first with $47,300. His big win came in the final Breeders’ Cup race on Friday, the Distaff, won in thrilling fashion by Beholder in a nose photo over Songbird.

Total handle on the four Breeders’ Cup races held Friday at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., was up 5.2 percent despite a significant drop in the number of runners in the races, according to charts.

Total handle on the Juvenile Turf, Dirt Mile, Juvenile Fillies Turf, and the headline race, the Distaff, was $30.5 million, according to the charts, up 5.2 percent compared with the same four races held last year on the Friday card at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. Total runners in the four races this year was 43, while last year’s four races had 53.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Mike Smith has been here before.

While Smith is the all-time leader in wins in Breeders’ Cup history, he may also be the leader in heartbreaking defeats. Six years after Smith lost a heartbreaker in the Breeders’ Cup Classic when the previously undefeated Zenyatta fell a head short to Blame, Smith was on the short end of another photo finish in Friday’s $2 million Distaff at Santa Anita, where the previously undefeated Songbird lost by a nose to Beholder.

ARCADIA, Calif. – New Money Honey is rapidly developing a diverse portfolio.

A 2-year-old filly, New Money Honey won her stakes debut and recorded her first victory in the Grade 3 Miss Grillo Stakes on a yielding turf course at Belmont Park on Oct. 2, her second career start. On Friday at Santa Anita, New Money Honey won her Grade 1 debut in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on a firm course at Santa Anita.