SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.  - Team Valor International won last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf with Pluck, and the ownership syndicate appears to have a major player for this year's edition of the Juvenile Turf in State of Play.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Killer Graces and Woebegon, impressive winners at the Hollywood Park spring-summer meet, start in Saturday’s $250,000 Del Mar Debutante with slightly dented reputations, fillies who were favored but beaten in stakes in their last starts.

The recent maiden race winners Dreamcaster and Weemissfrankie have yet to start in stakes, which is why one of the key questions in the Grade 1 Debutante will be whether their stakes-tested opponents have a real advantage.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Maidens have won four of the first six runnings of the With Anticipation Stakes for juvenile colts and geldings. Of the three maidens entered in Thursday’s seventh renewal of the turf race at Saratoga, Two Months Rent may be best suited to continue that trend.

DEL MAR, Calif. – By virtue of his victory in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic on Sunday here at Del Mar, Acclamation earned an automatic berth in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs. But the chances of him running in that race are remote.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Acclamation, who in recent months had emerged as the top turf horse in California, can now be regarded as the best horse, period, on the West Coast following his gutsy victory over favored Twirling Candy in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic before 29,267 on Sunday at Del Mar.

Maybe earned an automatic fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf by winning the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes, a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race, on Sunday at the Curragh in Ireland.

BREEDERS’ CUP CHALLENGE: Racing schedule, replays, and past winners >>

DEL MAR, Calif. - The race strategy for Celtic New Year in Sunday’s $200,000 Del Mar Handicap was to try to lead throughout the turf marathon over 1 3/8 miles on turf.

It could not have gone any differently, and in the end could not have worked out any better for owner Michael Jawl, trainer John Sadler, and jockey Victor Espinoza – with long-term ramifications this fall.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Hilda’s Passion came out of her sensational victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Ballerina at Saratoga with a non-displaced condylar fracture of her right front leg trainer Todd Pletcher revealed on Sunday. Hilda’s Passion moved to the top of the filly and mare sprint division with a 9 1/4-length triumph in the seven-furlong Ballerina.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Hilda’s Passion bounced back from her non-effort in her last race in a big way Saturday, taking command soon after the gates opened under Javier Castellano and rolling to a 9 1/4-length victory in the  Grade 1, $250,000 Ballerina Stakes at Saratoga.

The purse of last month’s Greenwood Cup Stakes, a Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In race at Parx Racing in Pennsylvania, is being withheld because of the result of a postrace drug test on the winner, A.U. Miner, according to the horse’s trainer and his legal counsel.