CYPRESS, Calif. - Sweet Azteca, the easy winner of Saturday’s Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes at Los Alamitos, missed an intended start in the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff at Churchill Downs on May 4 because of a minor injury.

There may still be an important road trip for Sweet Azteca outside of California this year.

In the minutes after the Great Lady M. Stakes, trainer Michael McCarthy hinted that the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap, a $500,000 race at seven furlongs for fillies and mares at Saratoga on Aug. 24, is a possible late summer goal.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Low Society, who won Saturday’s fourth race at Aqueduct, has been disqualified from that victory and ordered unplaced by the stewards after it was discovered the 3-year-old filly carried the incorrect weight during the running of the $50,000 claiming race, according to a stewards’ ruling and the New York Racing Association.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - There will be a pick-6 carryover of $114,387 into Sunday’s closing-day card at Aqueduct. Since it is the final day of the meet, the entire pool must be distributed.

The pick-6 Sunday will be on races 4 through 9 and will include the $125,000 Port Washington Stakes for New York-bred fillies, the co-feature on the card. The other stakes, the $125,000 Hudson Valley, goes as Race 2 and is not part of the pick-6.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a core function of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority is unconstitutional, in a narrow ruling that will nonetheless keep HISA’s legal status in limbo for months to come.

The ruling, issued on Friday night by a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, held that HISA’s enforcement powers “violate the private nondelegation doctrine” attributed by many courts to the constitution by giving HISA broad powers to enforce its rules without initial guidance from the Federal Trade Commission, its overseer.

Races from the Belmont at Aqueduct meet run by the New York Racing Association began to be blacked out on Thursday on FanDuelTV and its online horse racing betting company TVG after the two sides could not agree on a new contract, according to NYRA and FanDuel.

An earlier contract between NYRA and FanDuel expired on Monday, but the two sides had continued to negotiate through Wednesday. The Thursday card at Aqueduct is NYRA’s first live racing date since Sunday.

David Hofmans had the sort of results in 1996 and 1997 many trainers could only dream of accomplishing through an entire career.

In 1996, Hofmans won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Woodbine with Alphabet Soup, beating a field that included the legendary Cigar. Three weeks earlier,  Dramatic Gold won the Grade 1 Meadowlands Cup in New Jersey.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation met on Monday for the first time under its new status as a state corporation, rather than a department under the aegis of the state’s Public Protection Cabinet.

Horses trained by Greg Foley and James Lawrence II have become the latest to test positive for metformin, the banned diabetes drug that is being studied by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority for its potential to contaminate drug-testing samples.

Now that Kingsbarns has thrown himself into contention in a seemingly wide-open older male dirt division, his connections will have some decisions to make as to how to proceed with the second half of the 4-year-old’s campaign.

Following his sharp 2 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs, Kingsbarns was scheduled to return on Tuesday to his summer base of Saratoga, where he will train toward another likely lucrative Grade 1 opportunity.