SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Though Domestic Product has twice this year finished ahead of Fierceness in two-turn stakes races, he has found his best game going shorter distances.

About 45 minutes before Fierceness won Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers at 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga, Domestic Product won the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens going seven furlongs, beating Prince of Monaco by a neck. Domestic Product, trained by Chad Brown, followed a similar path set by his sire Practical Joke seven years earlier.

DEL MAR, Calif. - There was a time in the final months of 2023 when Raging Torrent was tried twice in top two-turn races for juveniles in California and Oklahoma. He finished fourth in the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita and last of six in the Springboard Mile at Remington Park.

“He acted like two turns would be what he wanted to do,” trainer Doug O’Neill reflected on Sunday morning. “I was wrong.”

DEL MAR, Calif. - The six-time stakes winner Planetario has been retired, less than a week before an intended start in the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap on Saturday.

Trainer Richard Mandella said Planetario was recently diagnosed with a suspensory injury. The injury was detected after a seven-furlong workout at Del Mar on Aug. 19.

“He’s got a slight tear in a suspensory ligament,” Mandella said on Sunday. “It’s a dangerous place to have that.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Fierceness, Sierra Leone and Dornoch, the first-, third- and fourth-place finishers from Saturday’s Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga, all will be trained toward the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 2 at Del Mar, a race that will likely be the deciding factor in determining the 3-year-old male champion of 2024.

Free Like a Girl became the all-time leading Louisiana-bred earner on Friday night with her win in the Misty Bennett Pink Ribbon Stakes at Charles Town.

The first-place check of $294,000 lifted Free Like a Girl's career earnings to $1,916,978. She is a 5-year-old mare by El Deal and was a $5,500 purchase at auction in 2020.

“There’s no words, really,” said Chasey Deville-Pomier, who co-owns and trains Free Like a Girl. “We’re just so proud of her. That’s all I can say, really.”

Handle on the 14-race card at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday shattered the previous record for Travers Day, with a 13.3 percent increase over the 2022 record set for a 13-race lineup, according to figures distributed by the New York Racing Association.

Total handle for the card was $63.0 million, up $7.4 million over the $55.6 million record set in 2022, according to the figures. Average handle per race for Saturday’s card was $4.5 million, compared to $4.2 million for the 13-race card in 2022, a difference of 7.1 percent.

Pretty Mischievous, the 2023 Kentucky Oaks winner and Eclipse Award champion of her division, has been retired to join the broodmare band for Godolphin, the owner-breeder announced on Thursday evening.

Godolphin shared a video on social media of Pretty Mischievous stepping off the van at her “new home at Gainsborough Farm,” its broodmare branch in Versailles, Ky. 

“Next stop, motherhood!” Godolphin wrote.

Pretty Mischievous, trained throughout her career by Brendan Walsh, retires with a racing record of 13-7-2-3 and earnings of $2,112,560          

John Hendrickson, who, along with his late wife Marylou Whitney was a Thoroughbred industry personality and philanthropist, died unexpectedly Monday in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. He was 59.

Fort Erie has announced that its marquee race, the $400,000 Prince of Wales Stakes, the middle leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, will go Sept. 10 as scheduled.

Woodbine traditionally runs the opening Triple Crown race, the $1 million King’s Plate, which was postponed from last Saturday to this Friday due to heavy rainfall that created unsafe track conditions.  

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - A quartet of Grade 1 races, three of them sprints and the fourth a long-time fixture on the turf, will serve as a fitting prelude to the $1.25 million Travers, the main event on Saturday’s 14-race program at Saratoga.