Delosvientos, who remained unbeaten at 1 1/2 miles with his win in the $97,000 Point Given at Monmouth Park last Sunday, will not advance to the $500,000 Breeders' Cup Marathon for religious reasons, according to trainer Giuseppe Iadisernia.

Iadisernia is a Seventh-day Adventist, a faith that observes Saturday as the Sabbath and a day in which work should be minimal. Iadisernia said he had hoped the Marathon, a 1 1/2-mile race new to the Breeders' Cup, would be part of the Friday card on Oct. 24.

When North American horseplayers think "turf sprint," they usually think of a grass race at 5 or 5 1/2 furlongs. But given the unique layout of the Santa Anita turf track, the first two runnings of the $1 million Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (2008 and 2009) will be run at 6 1/2 furlongs on the famed downhill course.

ARCADIA, Calif. - With the sequence of Breeders' Cup races rejiggered for this year, the $2 million Ladies' Classic, annually one of the best races on the Saturday card but often overshadowed by the $5 million Classic, now is the premier event of the Friday card.

The odds of C Karma getting to any race, let alone a Breeders' Cup race, were certainly stacked against her after she was cut up badly in a paddock accident as a yearling in Florida.

Her Woodbine-based trainer, Greg De Gannes, said C Karma ran into a big metal gate during a lightning storm when she was turned out with several other yearlings.

"She got hung up on her legs," said De Gannes. "It took three to four months to get the wounds healed up to where you could even think about the next step of her career."

ARCADIA, Calif. - Indian Blessing came home this week to a place she has never been.

Oh sure, Santa Anita remains the base for Indian Blessing's trainer, Bob Baffert. And it is the same place where Indian Blessing began training in spring 2007. Back then, the racing surface was dirt. Since then, much has changed.

Indian Blessing is pure speed, almost always an attribute on dirt. But the California surfaces now are all-synthetic.

"Synthetics will snatch the brilliance away from you," Baffert said. "Synthetics keep [races] close; I like when she separates from them."

ARCADIA, Calif. - The Breeders' Cup will be held for the 25th time this year, for the seventh time in Southern California, and for the fourth time here, at Santa Anita Park. In every previous running, the main-track races were run on good old-fashioned dirt. This year, however, it's a whole new world championship.

Yes, the Breeders' Cup Mile will be contested over the Santa Anita grass course in Southern California this year. But the major prep race for the BC Mile takes place this weekend about 5,430 miles east of Arcadia, Calif.

The Man o' War victory by Red Rocks, no better than a low-end Group 2 type in England, suggested that it might be difficult for an American-trained horse to win this year's Breeders' Cup Turf. Even with Red Rocks having become an "American horse" after he was switched from Brian Meehan's yard in Manton, England, to Mark Hennig's barn at Belmont, it is difficult to see an American landing the Turf if Europe sends over two or three of its best 1 1/2-mile types.

If you subscribe to the theory that there is strength in numbers, then nobody is stronger with 2-year-olds than Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum's Darley Stable.

Entering the final round of prep races for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile - to be run Oct. 25 at Santa Anita - Darley has no fewer than four legitimate prospects for the race and is likely to add an additional major player before the big race.

Mauralakana has won her last four starts to become the leading candidate for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita on Oct. 24. She may not have the preparation that trainer Christophe Clements would like in the next few weeks.

Clement wants to start Mauralakana in Saturday's $600,000 Flower Bowl Invitational at Belmont Park, but is not pleased by the prospect of wet weather and a soft turf course this weekend.