Santa Anita has completed the installation of a new racing surface that will be used for the first time during the autumn meeting that features the Breeders’ Cup races Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. The track’s autumn meeting begins Sept. 26.

Track superintendent Dennis Moore said Sunday he plans to spend the next few weeks blending and grading the material installed in late July and early August.

“It went fairly smoothly,” Moore said of the installation. “We’ll do a lot of watering and working the material, getting it blended and mixed.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Jockey Club did not back away from a threat to press for federal regulation of the sport in light of what it believes to be inadequate progress in addressing medication use in racing, with the organization’s top official saying at Sunday’s Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing in Saratoga Springs that the Jockey Club’s board has approved a “multi-pronged effort” that includes a push for federal legislation and a renewed attack on the race-day use of furosemide.

COLUMBUS, Neb. – The Sunday card at Columbus Races was called off before the first Sunday afternoon due to unsafe track conditions after rains hit the area both Friday and Saturday evening.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Coming off a course record-setting performance in Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Fourstardave Handicap at Saratoga, Seek Again now will be plotted down a path to get to the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 1.

While there are two $1 million spots on the calendar before the Breeders’ Cup – the Woodbine Mile on Sept 14 and the Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland on Oct. 4 – trainer Bill Mott said Sunday he likely would just choose one of them for Seek Again.

OPELOUSAS, La. – Evangeline Downs leading rider Colby Hernandez had a big night Saturday when he booted home five winners on the nine-race program. Hernandez won the first four races on the evening, then added the $23,500 allowance feature for good measure. Hernandez’s five-bagger came one week after Emanuel Nieves accomplished the same feat last Saturday.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Turf racing resumed at Del Mar for the first time in nine days Saturday, with three races run on the course without incident. The drama on the surface was limited to close finishes and an exciting rally by Enterprising in the Grade 2 La Jolla Handicap.

In the first week of August, the turf course was extensively aerated and watered in an effort to make the surface kinder. Four horses were euthanized as a result of injuries suffered in turf races from July 17 through July 26. Turf racing was cancelled July 27 for a brief period of maintenance.

After significant alterations were made to the Belmont spring/summer and Saratoga stakes schedules, the program for the upcoming Belmont Park fall meet has mostly minor changes.

Topped by the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup on Sept. 27, Belmont has scheduled 42 stakes – 20 graded – worth $11 million in purses for its 38-day meet that begins Friday, Sept. 5.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The old-timers inducted during the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame ceremony Friday officially were a 19th century horse, Clifford, and a 19th century jockey, Lloyd Hughes.

But they also were the 20th century trainer Gary Jones and the modern rider Alex Solis.

Stanley Gold and Kathleen O’Connell, who train for two of the most prominent owner-breeders in the state of Florida, stuffed the entry box for the opening leg of the 2014 Florida Sire Series, which will be run for the first time in the event’s 33-year history at Gulfstream Park this summer.

Gulfstream Park will offer a record $11.25 million in stakes purses during the 2014-15 championship meet, which opens Dec. 6. The $1 million Florida Derby again headlines the rich stakes schedule when closing the curtain on the winter meeting March 28.