ARCADIA, Calif. – They have pretty much abandoned trying to contain the 3-year-old sprinter around trainer Bob Baffert’s barn.

Thursday, two days before The Factor was scheduled to start as a heavy favorite in Saturday’s $250,000 Ancient Title Stakes at Santa Anita, Baffert wanted to jog The Factor for his morning routine only for exercise rider Manny Avila to beg otherwise.

“I wanted to jog him, but Manny pleaded with me to gallop him,” Baffert said. “He said, ‘I won’t be able to hold him tomorrow.’ ”

Most races have some unknowns – uncertainties regarding horses or the race conditions that cloud the picture of how the race will unfold.

Saturday’s Grade 1, $400,000 Dixiana Breeders’ Futurity – a Win and You’re In race for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile – has way more than its fair share. A 1 1/16-mile race on Polytrack for juveniles, it drew a field of 14, plus two also eligibles – yet only one horse in body of the race, longshot Curfew Tower, has the experience of having raced two turns on a synthetic track.

ELMONT, N.Y. – After Union Rags splashed his way to a 7 1/4-length victory in the Grade 2 Saratoga Special in mid-August, trainer Michael Matz had two choices: wheel the 2-year-old back in three weeks in the Grade 1 Hopeful or wait seven weeks and point to the Grade 1 Champagne.

Matz opted for the latter, figuring if he was going to have to run Union Rags back on relatively short rest, he’d rather do it for a race like the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile four weeks from now at Churchill Downs.

Breeders’ Cup Sprint hopeful Smiling Tiger will head to auction after that race, selling agent Archie St. George announced Thursday.

Winner of the Triple Bend at Holywood Park in July, Smiling Tiger will sell as Hip No. 150 in Fasig-Tipton’s November sale in Lexington, Ky., which takes place on Nov. 6, the day after the Sprint. Owners Alan Klein and Philip Lebherz will offer Smiling Tiger, a 4-year-old Hold That Tiger colt, as a racing or stallion prospect.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – There are no superstars in the Juddmonte Spinster Stakes on Sunday at Keeneland, but that might be missing the point. The Grade 1 fixture drew a fabulously well-matched field of 13 fillies and mares for its 56th running, with accomplished stakes runners such as Aruna, Tapitsfly, Embur’s Song, and Pachattack taking part.

ELMONT, N.Y. – My Miss Aurelia won the Grade 2 Adirondack on Aug. 14 at Saratoga, but she might have only been the second-best 2-year-old filly to race on that day’s card.

Two races earlier, Stopshoppingmaria galloped to a 9 3/4-length maiden win, running six furlongs in 1:09.87, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 101.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes proved an ideal prep for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint last year when Dubai Majesty swept both races. Perhaps having noticed that, John Sadler is going out of his way in an attempt to follow an identical path with his standout filly, Switch, who has shipped in from Southern California and will go off Saturday as a solid favorite in the 31st running of the Grade 2, $200,000 TCA Stakes at Keeneland.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Since mid-summer, Mr. Commons has had a crash course in how to be a top-class turf miler in California.

A win in the restricted Oceanside Stakes for 3-year-olds at Del Mar in July was followed by a game second, by a nose, to the multiple stakes winner Caracortado in the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile on Aug. 27.

MIAMI - Trainer David Fawkes said Big Drama has fully recovered from the 103-degree temperature that kept him out of the Vosburgh and cost him a chance to get in a much-needed final prep for a defense of his Sprint title. Big Drama has raced just twice this season and only once since Jan. 15.

Fawkes drove his two-horse trailer from Florida to New York on Tuesday to pick up Big Drama and stablemate Apriority, who finished an unlucky seventh after getting bumped shortly after the start of the Vosburgh. Both horses will train up to the Sprint.