Seeking the Soul was sent through his final breeze for the Pacific Classic, going five furlongs in 1:01.20 before dawn Friday over a fast Churchill track. The Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic will be run next Saturday at Del Mar.

Trained by Dallas Stewart for owner-breeder Charles Fipke, Seeking the Soul will be making his first start since winning the Grade 2 Stephen Foster on June 15 at Churchill. Stewart and Fipke won the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar with Forever Unbridled when she was coming off a layoff of similar length.

Charity auction on tap

Total handle on the opening-day card on Thursday night at Colonial Downs in New Kent, Virginia, was $1.56 million for 10 races offering more than $500,000 in total purses, according to figures provided by the track.

DEL MAR, Calif. – A change in ownership related to the 3-year-old colt Fravel, who was scheduled to make his debut on Wednesday at Del Mar, brought renewed attention to the way California regulates racing compared to other states, and invited debate on potential conflicts of interest pertaining to the way the racing board is comprised in this state.

Delaware Park stewards have barred a trainer of Arabian horses for life after he was found to have run at least one ringer at the track last year.

Mark Powell, the trainer, was barred after DNA tests on one of his horses “revealed no match to established DNA.” The horse, So Big Boy, won three races at Delaware Park last year, including the Grade 2 Delaware Park Arabian Derby by 6 ½ lengths.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – As always, the room was packed for the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Friday morning.

Inductees or representatives for this year’s bulky class of 16 – of which a dozen were in the Pillars of the Turf category – took their reserved seats near returning members of the Hall of Fame. Members of the public crowded into the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion, not only to watch the ceremony, which was free to attend, but to take advantage of the opportunity to meet some of the sport’s legends.

Alan Booge, principal of the stable AB Racing for more than 30 years, has died, said Jack Deakins, who trained for the resident of Phoenix.

Booge died June 22 at the age of 76, according to an obituary from Hansen Mortuary. He was an Iowa native, and a funeral mass will be held Saturday at the Resurrection of Our Lord Catholic Church in Pocahontas, Iowa. A celebration of life will be held this fall in Phoenix.

Marylou Whitney lived long enough to know she had been named earlier this year to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame as a Pillar of the Turf. Her presence figures to be a central theme at the induction ceremony on Friday morning in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., as a bulky class of 16, including jockey Craig Perret and the mare Royal Delta, is enshrined.

A San Diego County Superior Court Judge Friday ruled in favor of trainer Jerry Hollendorfer in the Hall of Famer’s quest to receive a temporary injunction against Del Mar, which has prevented Hollendorfer from running horses at the current meeting, which began July 17.

Judge Ronald F. Frazier’s ruling said the request from Hollendorfer and co-plaintiff California Thoroughbred Trainers for a preliminary injunction would be granted with modification.

Former trainer James E. “Jimmy” Picou died Friday in Tamarac, Fla. He was 85.

Picou started out as a jockey before later turning to training, a profession his late brother, Clarence, also pursued. Jimmy Picou trained Thoroughbreds for nearly a half-century before retiring in 2004.

According to Equineline statistics kept from 1976 onward, which do not encompass some early years of his career, Picou saddled 422 winners in that span, including 62 stakes winners, for earnings of more than $15 million.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Due to the ongoing heat wave, and in consultation with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and track president Dennis Drazin, Monmouth Park decided following the second race Saturday to cut short the track’s Haskell Invitational card and to run an abbreviated program later in the evening.

The six scheduled stakes will be run beginning at 6 p.m. All of the non-stakes races -- races 3, 4, 6, 7, 13, and 14 -- have been canceled.

The decision to shorten the program and move post time back was made after races 1 and 2 had been run.