DEL MAR, Calif. - The final races of Iotapa’s 2014 season were set when she won her second consecutive Grade 1 race in Saturday’s $300,250 Clement Hirsch Stakes for fillies and mares at Del Mar.

The Hirsch is part of the Breeders’ Cup’s Win and You’re In program and gives Iotapa a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita in the autumn. For a prep race, Iotapa is expected to start in the $300,000 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 27.

“It’s good spacing throughout,” said Larry Benavidez, assistant to trainer John Sadler.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Joe Talamo hardly seemed to move a muscle aboard Iotapa on the backstretch of Saturday’s $300,250 Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar. Talamo could not have been more active on Iotapa in the stretch to secure victory in the meeting’s top race for older fillies and mares.

Winning her second consecutive Grade 1, Iotapa held off a stubborn threat from pacesetter Broken Sword to win the Hirsch by a half-length. Owned by Hronis Racing, Iotapa ($4) ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.04 in an effort that left Talamo impressed.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Midway through Saturday afternoon’s card at Saratoga, the effervescent and brash trainer Eric Guillot was in tears. Sir William Bruce, a 2-year-old colt he had run for the first time, suffered from cardiovascular collapse and died shortly after being unsaddled following a fifth-place finish in a maiden race.

Guillot, his eyes red, was visibly shaken, and he had two hours with nothing to do.

“I tried to go by myself a little bit, walk around,” Guillot said. “It was rough. I didn’t want to explain the story over and over again for two hours.”

William S. Farish Jr., a member of the family that owns Lane’s End Farm in central Kentucky, has won a runoff in an election for a four-year seat on the Breeders’ Cup board of directors, according to the organization.

Farish, the current chairman of the board, beat out Bobby Flay, the New York-based celebrity chef and horse owner, in runoff voting Monday and Tuesday, the Breeders’ Cup said. Flay will receive a one-year seat on the board.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The Breeders’ Cup championship races will be run at familiar and new venues from 2015 to 2017, the organization announced Tuesday.

For the first time, the Breeders’ Cup championship days will be run at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., on Oct. 30-31, 2015. For 2016 and 2017, the event will be in California – for a record ninth time at Santa Anita on Nov. 4-5, 2016, and for the first time at Del Mar, north of San Diego, on Nov. 3-4, 2017.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Breeders’ Cup will announce later this month that the two-day event will be held for the first time at Keeneland Race Course in 2015, according to a report in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Officials for Keeneland and the Breeders’ Cup on Tuesday would not comment on the report, which also said the event will return to Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif., in 2016 and then be moved in 2017 to another first-time venue, Del Mar racetrack in Del Mar, Calif. The report cited two unidentified sources “with knowledge of the plans.”

Twenty-three individuals have been elected to the slate of representatives that ultimately selects the board members of the Breeders’ Cup, the organization said Monday.

Twenty of the individuals were elected to one-year terms as Breeders’ Cup members, and three were elected to two-year terms. There are 39 members in the organization, which will vote in elections this July for six seats on the Breeders’ Cup board.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Close Hatches narrowly held off an oncharging Princess of Sylmar in a thrilling 46th running of the Grade 1, $955,000 Ogden Phipps on the spectacular Belmont Stakes card Saturday at Belmont Park.

With Joel Rosario aboard, Close Hatches rated off the pace set by a couple of longshots before getting first run on both Beholder, the even-money favorite, and Princess of Sylmar, the 9-5 second choice who trailed to the top of the stretch.

Eighteen of the major preps giving horses an automatic berth in a Breeders’ Cup race will be televised live on NBC or NBC Sports this summer and fall under a new agreement between Breeders’ Cup Ltd. and the network’s parent company, according to an announcement by both parties Monday.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The connections of Princess of Sylmar laid out a blueprint of the schedule they would like to keep this year for their 4-year-old filly, who made a successful return to the races Sunday with a 3 1/2-length victory in the Cat Cay Stakes at Aqueduct.

The schedule includes the $1 million Ogden Phipps on June 7 at Belmont Park, the $750,000 Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park on July 12, the Grade 1 Personal Ensign at Saratoga in August, and the Grade 1 Beldame on Sept. 27 at Belmont Park.