Prep season for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff ends Sunday when Nest and Malathaat – one-two favorites on the Daily Racing Form preliminary line – run in their final prep races.

Nest goes in the Grade 2 Beldame at Aqueduct; Malathaat in the Spinster at Keeneland. Todd Pletcher trains the Grade 1 winners listed at 5-2 and 3-1, respectively, by DRF.

Meanwhile, although prep season has ended for Distaff contenders Clairiere and Society, uncertainty lingers. Clairiere comes off the worst finish of her career, and lightly raced 3-year-old Society has never faced older.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - War Like Goddess will take on males earlier than expected as trainer Bill Mott plans to run the top older turf mare in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic on Saturday at Aqueduct.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Life Is Good did not win Saturday’s Grade 1 Woodward Stakes with the brilliance many expected or to which they have become accustomed, but the performance was good enough for his connections to continue on to the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5 at Keeneland and a meeting with the undefeated Flightline.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - When Blazing Sevens rallied from last to win Saturday’s $500,000 Champagne Stakes by 3 1/4 lengths, it gave trainer Chad Brown his fourth victory in the last seven runnings of the storied Grade 1 dirt stakes for juveniles. He also has a second-place finish in the race over that span.

“Not bad for a turf barn,” Brown quipped Sunday morning.

Dancing Buck, the five-length winner of Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Belmont Turf Sprint at Aqueduct, could be supplemented to the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint for a fee of $100,000, part-owner Thomas Newkirk said Sunday.

“If the horse comes out of the race healthy and in good shape and Michelle says he can be competitive then we’ll probably go,” said Newkirk, part of the J and N Stables that co-owns Dancing Buck with Diamond Stable.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Lieutenant Dan will miss the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Keeneland on Nov. 5 with an undisclosed ailment.

Second in the 2021 BC Turf Sprint at Del Mar, Lieutenant Dan won his only start this year in the Grade 3 Green Flash Handicap at Del Mar on Sept. 4, but has not had a workout since that race.

A 6-year-old gelding, Lieutenant Dan has won 9 of 18 starts and earned $923,740 for owner and breeder Nick Alexander and trainer Steve Miyadi.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Epicenter, the leader of the 3-year-old male division, led a group of quality workers for trainer Steve Asmussen as he turned in his first local move toward the Nov. 5 Breeders’ Cup Classic on Sunday morning at Keeneland. 

Epicenter, working solo under regular exercise rider Wilson Fabian, went a half-mile in 51 seconds in the second set of a mild fall morning. It was his fourth work since winning the Travers Stakes on Aug. 27, but his first of those at Keeneland, as he arrived in Lexington from Saratoga last Wednesday. 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Lukas Classic is supposed to be the highlight of the September meet at Churchill Downs – and boy, was it ever.

Hot Rod Charlie and Rich Strike really put on a show Saturday in the Grade 2 race, battling fiercely to the wire in an instant classic. The 4-year-old Hot Rod Charlie edged the 3-year-old Rich Strike by maybe 10 inches, with camps for both horses elated with the outcome.

The 2017 conviction of Pennsylvania-based trainer Murray Rojas has been vacated after an appeals court ruled that a statute pertaining to the misbranding of drugs had been misapplied in the case, according to court rulings.

ARCADIA, Calif. – A decades-long tradition ends quietly Friday at Santa Anita. For the first time this century, opening day of the autumn meet is without a graded stakes.

It is nothing to quibble over, considering the upcoming schedule. After all, it is Breeders’ Cup prep season, and 13 of the 16 stakes the next two weekends at Santa Anita have potential Breeders’ Cup ramifications.

Still, opening day without a stakes is different.