While trainer James Fanshawe stopped just short of confirming it, all indications are Audarya will return to the U.S. to seek a repeat victory in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 6.

“We’re very hopeful that she’ll make it,” Fanshawe said by phone from Newmarket on Tuesday. “She’s nice and bright. The climate is very different here than what it is at Del Mar, but she looks good in her coat. I just don’t want to confirm 100 percent until we really know for sure.”

Nick Cosato was sitting around one night with his son Ryan, watching basketball highlights on TNT, when Charles Barkley started launching into one of his animated shout outs to Manu Ginobili

“GINOBILI!”

“To me, it’s the funniest thing in the world,” Cosato said Wednesday.

As the head of a partnership he named Slam Dunk Racing, Cosato obviously is partial to basketball. “I love it damn near as much as racing,” he said.

One Timer made his career debut June 26 at Arlington Park, but the youngster had strongly advertised his ability beforehand when he first hit the work tab the prior month. That ability has come to fruition as One Timer is one of the leading hopefuls for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint on Nov. 5 at Del Mar.

It seems like six years ago that the fillies Uni and Got Stormy finished one-two in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita. A global pandemic, we’ve come to find, will do that – stretch and bend time outside the ticking of clocks and turning of calendars.

It really was six years ago that trainer Mark Casse won the BC Mile with a filly, Tepin, heroine of the 2015 renewal at Keeneland. And at Del Mar’s only Breeders’ Cup, in 2017, it was Casse again, taking the Mile with World Approval.

As recently as 2003, the 1 3/4-mile San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita was a Grade 1 worth $400,000. Times sure have changed.

The race is no longer a handicap and was run in June this year as a Grade 3 stakes worth $100,000. The decline is a reflection of fewer stakes-quality turf marathoners over the last two decades in California.

Still, the San Juan Capistrano may have had a revival of sorts this year. The first two finishers – Acclimate and Astronaut – may start in the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 6.

Once you see him out on the track, you understand it better, why Annapolis has been such a darling of the bettors in his two-start career.

The defections of Dr Post, Happy Saver, and Maxfield in recent days from the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 6 at Del Mar mean that the prospective field could barely reach double digits after at one time looking as though it could be a capacity crowd of 14 for the 1 1/4-mile race.

Last year, Glass Slippers became the first European-based winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint when she scored at Keeneland. Perhaps emboldened by that success, this year’s European possibilities for the upcoming renewal on Nov. 6 at Del Mar look like a strong lot.

After watching Dr. Schivel turn in his best performance to date despite having to overcome a broken rein during his victory in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship, trainer Mark Glatt is hopeful his lightly raced 3-year-old speedster is ready for yet another forward move when he faces an even more formidable assignment in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint. The BC Sprint will be run at six furlongs on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

Echo Zulu, the clear-cut favorite for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, had her first of three scheduled works since being flown to California, going five furlongs in 1:02 last Friday at Santa Anita.

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen said early this week that Echo Zulu will work again Friday at Santa Anita before the Gun Runner filly is vanned Monday to Del Mar, site of the 2021 Breeders’ Cup, for a final breeze there.