SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Sierra Leone, runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and third as the favorite in the Belmont Stakes, continued preparations for the second half of his 3-year-old campaign Sunday by working a sharp half-mile in 48.74 seconds over the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga.

Working by himself for the third straight week, Sierra Leone went his opening quarter in 25.31 seconds and his final quarter in 23.43 while continuing out five furlongs in 1:01.92, and six furlongs in 1:14.59.

Sierra Leone is pointing to the Grade 2, $500,000 Jim Dandy here on July 27.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Woodbine canceled Sunday’s card due to a forecast of excessive heat in the Toronto area. The decision was made in consultation with the HPBA and commission veterinarian.

The forecasted high for today is 28 degrees Celius or 82 degrees Fahrenheit, with considerable humidity.

The $125,000 Victoria Stakes has been rescheduled as is for Friday.

Live racing is scheduled to resume on Thursday; that card that has already been drawn. Post time is 4:50 p.m.

The New York Racing Association and FanDuel remained at an impasse over a contract for NYRA’s Saratoga signal on the eve of the popular track’s opening day, according to officials with NYRA.

In a statement, Patrick McKenna, NYRA’s vice president of communications, said that no contract had been signed as of late Wednesday afternoon. A previous contract between the two sides allowing FanDuel and its horse racing account-wagering operation, TVG, to stream and offer wagering on NYRA’s races expired on July 1.

Assiniboia Downs has announced a temporary change to its racing schedule due to measures taken in response to a recent equine health concern.

Starting the week of July 15, racing will shift to a Monday-Tuesday schedule until Aug. 12, after which the regular Monday-through-Wednesday schedule will resume.

Proceedings in the sexual-assault case against Frank Stronach, the former head of an expansive Thoroughbred breeding and racetrack empire, were adjourned Monday for three months so that attorneys for Stronach can review an initial disclosure package from the prosecution, according to the Toronto Star.

Russell “R.J.” Bennett, a prominent owner/breeder in British Columbia and a member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, has died at age 94.

Bennett, along with his wife, Lois, bred and/or raced over 60 stakes winners. He was a member of the Jockey Club of Canada for almost 40 years and was involved in Thoroughbred racing in Canada since the 1950s. He was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2007, and, in 2015, received the prestigious E. P. Taylor Award of Merit at the Sovereign Awards ceremony.

After months without an apprentice jockey based in Southern California, two such riders, Melvis Gonzalez and Ruany Orantes, plan to ride the Del Mar summer meeting, which begins on July 20.

Orantes, listed in official documents by his formal first name, Welfin, has won seven races in California and Washington since his career began in 2022.

Orantes, 25, won three races at the three-week Los Alamitos summer meeting that ended on Sunday. He returned to riding in late June for the first time since last fall at Grants Pass in Oregon.

Free Like a Girl was scheduled to arrive home at her Evangeline Downs base in Opelousas, La., this weekend after spending the past month in Kentucky.

Her next road trip could be to either Saratoga or Charles Town.

But before committing to any plans, trainer Chasey Deville-Pomier said she wants to see how Free Like a Girl resumes training following her sixth-place finish in the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis on June 29 at Churchill Downs.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Manny Franco was the leading rider at the Belmont at Aqueduct spring/summer meet that concluded Sunday.

Franco won 41 races, four more than Irad Ortiz Jr. and seven more than Flavien Prat. The stats include the four-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival held at Saratoga (June 6-9) for a total of 35 racing days.

It was Franco’s 11th individual meet title on the New York Racing Association circuit, but first in what is basically the Belmont Park spring meet. He won the regular Aqueduct spring meet title as well.

Ova Charged can mack down with the best of them and perhaps the only thing that matches her appetite is her accomplishments.

She owns the year’s highest Beyer Speed Figure, a 113, and is coming off her seventh consecutive stakes win. It came in the $125,000 Chicken Fried Stakes at Lone Star Park near Dallas on June 29.

The Louisiana Downs-based Ova Charged was weighed during her trip to Texas, and tipped the scale at 1,188 pounds. And for a mare "that’s not 16 hands,” the height-to-weight proportion makes for one stout racehorse.