ELMONT, N.Y. – Travers Stakes winner V. E. Day is being pointed to the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 1 at Santa Anita, trainer Jimmy Jerkens said Saturday.

Jerkens said the combination of a race that appears to have plenty of speed and the fact that owner Magalen Bryant “wants to take a shot” led to the decision to likely run.

Jerkens cautioned that a final decision wouldn’t be made until Monday, when owners have to pay a fee to pre-enter their horses, but all indications are that the horse will run.

An old German proverb goes: “To change and to change for the better are two different things.”

The first recognized racecourse in America opened in Long Island, N.Y., 350 years ago. It would be impossible to recount the tracks that have come and gone since that time.

This fall, two tracks that had been icons since the 1930s are gone. Hollywood Park, home of the inaugural Breeders’ Cup in 1984, went under the wrecking ball this year. The Inglewood, Calif., course opened in 1938 and added a regular fall meeting in 1981.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Breeders’ Cup is preparing to sell 28,000 reserved tickets for next year’s two-day Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, officials for the racetrack said Friday, though attendance on the Keeneland campus, which includes outlying buildings, is expected to be 42,000 to 45,000, according to Breeders' Cup officials.

ARCADIA, Calif.- Kieren Fallon, the leading rider in England six times, is planning a move to California this winter, according to a report in the Racing Post.

Fallon, 49, will begin riding in California at the end of this month, coinciding with the Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 and the final days of the British turf flat season. The veteran rider said he hopes to make a permanent move for the final stage of his career.

Friends and racetrack supporters were organizing charitable funds and tending to logistical matters Thursday following the tragic death of Juan Saez, the 17-year-old apprentice rider who died Tuesday night in Indianapolis from injuries suffered in a spill at Indiana Grand.

Australian apprentice jockey Caitlin Forrest died Wednesday evening as a result of injuries suffered in a four-horse spill earlier that day at Murray Bridge Racecourse. Forrest is the third rider who has died this week as a result of racing or training accidents.

Australian jockey Carly-Mae Pye, 26, died of injuries suffered in a training race in Australia on Monday. Tuesday, apprentice jockey Juan Saez, 17, died of head injuries suffered earlier that day in a spill at Indiana Grand racetrack.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Betting figures and attendance so far during the fall meet at Keeneland have plummeted when compared with last year’s record results, according to figures supplied by the track.

Poorer weather than last year probably is playing a large role in the drops, but other factors, including a new dirt surface and a drop in field size partially attributable to fewer horses shipping in from tracks with artificial surfaces, also are contributing to the declines.

Seventeen-year-old apprentice rider Juan Saez died Tuesday night from severe head trauma following a spill at Indiana Grand in suburban Indianapolis, stunning those who had known him as a rising star since he began his career in June.

Saez lingered on life support for several hours at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis after being airlifted there from Indiana Grand, according to information supplied Wednesday morning by his agent, Julio Espinoza. The time of death was 10:52 p.m. Eastern.

Churchill Downs in Louisville and Kentucky Downs in Franklin on Tuesday were ordered by a committee of the state’s racing commission to engage in mediated discussions over September racing dates next year, with the two tracks agreeing to continue the discussions after the initial talks bore some fruit, commission officials said.

CYPRESS, Calif. – California Chrome, the Kentucky Derby winner, continued his encouraging training regimen on Saturday when he worked five furlongs here at Los Alamitos in 59.60 seconds, a drill that had both trainer Art Sherman and jockey Victor Espinoza believing he was headed in the right direction for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic three weeks away at Santa Anita.