INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The most important race of Smiling Tiger’s brief career is Saturday’s $250,000 Ancient Title Stakes at Hollywood Park.

If he runs well, a start in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs on Nov. 6 awaits. If he runs a disappointing race, owners Philip Lebherz and Alan Klein and trainer Jeff Bonde will have to regroup and will likely stay in California.

Bonde, for one, is ready for a journey to Kentucky.

“We’re hoping he comes with a big one,” Bonde said. “He needs to run a good race.”

Gone, and mostly forgotten. That has been the story of Courageous Cat’s 2010 campaign, but Courageous Cat might remind people just how good he can be when he returns to action Saturday in the Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland.

The Shadwell also is expected to include 2009 champion Gio Ponti as well as improving Bernard Baruch winner Get Stormy, and the race will help determine the breadth of U.S.-based contingent for the Breeders’ Cup Mile. In California, 3-year-old Sidney’s Candy will attempt to repeat his smashing turf debut at Del Mar in the Oak Tree Mile at Hollywood Park.

New Normal established herself as a top contender for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf this summer by winning her maiden and the Grade 3 Natalma Stakes over Woodbine’s grass course, but it’s by coincidence that she’s an expert on the surface. When she was ready to debut in early August, trainer Mark Frostad said it just happened to be a turf race that was in the condition book, and the rest is history.

Every week leading up to the Breeders' Cup, we'll take a look back at some key prep races and try to come up with some contenders.

Classic:

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Considering trainer Richard Mandella's record on Breeders' Cup Day in past years, anything he starts in those major races merits respect.

He had two winners on the 1993 program and a remarkable four victories in 2003. Both of those days of racing were held at his home base of Santa Anita. This year, Mandella will send a small team to the Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs on Nov. 5-6. The extent of his team will be better known after Saturday's card at Hollywood Park.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – A half-length loss to Zenyatta in Saturday’s $250,000 Lady’s Secret Stakes has not changed trainer John Sadler’s autumn plans for Switch.

Even though the 3-year-old filly would appear to be a suitable contender for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic over 1 1/8 miles at Churchill Downs on Nov.  5 following her determined performance against Zenyatta, Sadler said she is better suited to the $1 million Filly and Mare Sprint over seven furlongs on the same day.

“We are looking at the seven-eighths,” Sadler said.

The budding rivalry between Blind Luck, the nation’s top 3-year-old filly, and Havre de Grace, who defeated her last Saturday in the Grade 2, $750,000 Fitz Dixon Cotillion at Parx Racing, could make its way to the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 5.

The 1 1/8-mile race has long been the objective for Blind Luck, who won the Kentucky Oaks at the distance in May, while Havre de Grace’s connections were pondering a start on Monday.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Of the many things that can be said about Zenyatta, this one is certainly true: She has never needed an excuse. Track surface, pace, weight, distance, trip – none of it has mattered, for nearly three years running, a truly remarkable feat. She ran her record to a perfect 19 for 19 on Saturday at Hollywood Park in the Lady’s Secret Stakes, which for the third straight year has set her up for a start in the Breeders’ Cup.

ELMONT, N.Y. – The connections of Haynesfield found out Saturday what they were hoping to learn eight months earlier – that their New York-bred colt is indeed Grade 1 material.

Haynesfield’s four-length, gate-to-wire victory in Saturday’s $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park may have been the product of a quality speed horse getting loose on the lead. But it was also the product of a pattern of patience displayed by owner Harvey Weinstein and Toby Sheets, Steve Asmussen’s Belmont-based assistant trainer who has overseen the colt’s training throughout his career.

PARIS – Workforce , winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, was mentioned as a possibility for the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Monday, one day after his game head victory over Nakayama Festa at Longchamp.

Speaking to the Racing Post, Juddmonte Farm’s racing manager, Teddy Grimthorpe, said, “Workforce seems to have come out of the Arc very well. We’ll see how she is during the next couple of weeks and then make a decision on whether to run him again this year, possibly in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.”