Daily Racing Form handicapper Kenny Peck provides his late pick five play for Best of Ohio Day on Saturday at Mahoning Valley.

Keeneland Weather: Cloudy Track: Muddy Temp. 43

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Heavy rains the previous day put a damper on training hours Friday morning both at Keeneland, the site of this year’s Breeders’ Cup, and down the road at Churchill, which currently houses an even larger number of potential starters for the big event, now just a week away.

Cold air moved in after the rain moved out, with the temperature barely climbing into the low 40s when the main track, officially listed as muddy, opened for business here at 5:30 a.m.

A determination as to whether Justify should be disqualified from the 2018 Santa Anita Derby will hinge on whether a panel of stewards believes the California Horse Racing Board was required to adhere to a regulation despite the recommendation of its equine medical director to dismiss a post-race finding for an environmental contaminant, according to a testimony in a hearing conducted on Thursday.

With the general public not allowed to attend the races, the Del Mar autumn meeting begins a five-week season Saturday with higher overnight purses than last year, an emphasis on turf stakes in the final days of the meeting, and a lower minimum wager for the pick six.

First post Saturday is 12:30 p.m. Pacific. Following this weekend, racing will be conducted largely on a Friday-through-Sunday basis, with a program scheduled for Thanksgiving Thursday, Nov. 26.

The autumn meeting covers 15 racing days through Nov. 29.

The Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint will take just over a minute to run next Saturday at Keeneland – Leinster holds the course record, 1:00.86, for the 5 1/2-furlong trip.

But for the Dunne family, which co-owns the horse, their involvement with the race spans far more than a minute. Ciaran and Amy Dunne, who launched Wavertree Stables in 1995, gave Leinster his early training several years ago – as they previously did with his champion half-brother, Stormy Liberal – and have patiently watched their stable star develop.

A trainer in Iowa has been suspended one year after he admitted to regulators that he accidentally spilled a banned substance into a horse’s feed supplement, according to the Prairie Meadows stewards.

A year after winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf with Sharing in a minor upset, Maryland trainer Graham Motion has two prospects for the same race at Keeneland on Nov. 6.

Alda, second in the Grade 1 Natalma Stakes at Woodbine on Sept. 20, is assured a berth in the Juvenile Fillies Turf at a mile. Invincible Gal, second in the Selima Stakes at Pimlico on Oct. 3, was among five fillies placed on the also-eligible list when pre-entries were released Wednesday. Nineteen fillies were pre-entered and 14 can run in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf.

It looks like Starship Jubilee will be playing the long game in the Breeders’ Cup.

Though she was pre-entered in both the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile and the $2 million Filly and Mare Turf, trainer Kevin Attard said Wednesday that the Filly and Mare Turf “is the direction we’re heading in.”

Despite the presence of unbeaten and ultra-impressive Grade 1 winners Jackie’s Warrior and Essential Quality, 15 2-year-olds, including three who won a maiden race just last weekend, were pre-entered for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, to be run Nov. 6 at Keeneland. Fourteen will be allowed to start.

The pattern has become familiar: Win the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap in August, earn a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Turf, and take a longshot’s chance against many of the world’s best grass runners a few months later.

California trainer Phil D’Amato has won the Del Mar Handicap in six of the last seven years. Four of those winners have started in the BC Turf, but without success. The best results were ninth-place finishes by Big John B in 2014 and Acclimate last year when the race was run at Santa Anita.