Skipping the Breeders’ Cup last month helped the 2-year-old filly Tenma finish the year with a sharp win in Saturday’s Grade 2 Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos, and secure a place among the national prospects in the 3-year-old filly division for 2025.

Tenma had her first start on Saturday since she finished a well-beaten third to stablemate Non Compliant in the Grade 2 Oak Leaf Stakes at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita on Oct. 5.

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert passed on the BC Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar on Nov. 1 with Tenma in favor of the Starlet.

The New York-based trainer Orlando Noda will begin serving a 90-day suspension this week after an appellate court judge denied Noda’s appeal of penalties handed him by the New York State Gaming Commission for alleged mistreatment of a horse during summer 2021.

In addition to the suspension, officially listed for action detrimental to the best interest of racing, Noda will have to pay a $5,000 fine and take part in an anger management program.

Noda, in an attempt to address backstretch rumors, announced his suspension on the social media platform X late Saturday night.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The eventual return to the races of Fierceness and Mindframe as well as the re-emergence of Locked should give trainer Todd Pletcher a strong hand in the older male dirt division in 2025.

Locked, sidelined by a ligament injury in a knee for most of his 3-year-old season, won Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Cigar Mile in just his second start of the year.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Fierceness, the champion 2-year-old male of 2023 and a contender for 3-year-old divisional honors in 2024, will start his 4-year-old campaign in the spring and thus will not be considered for the $3 million Pegasus at Gulfstream Park or a Middle East trip this winter, his connections said Sunday.

Fierceness, while being turned out for a 60-day period in Kentucky following his game runner-up performance in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar on Nov. 2, underwent an elective surgical procedure on a hind ankle, trainer Todd Pletcher said.

Oaklawn drew an estimated ontrack crowd of 13,000 for its season opener Friday, while handle on the track’s 10 races from all sources was more than $7.1 million.

The crowd for Saturday was an estimated 15,500, while handle on the 10-race program was more than $6.1 million from all sources, according to figures released by the track.

The claiming game is underway, with 11 horses haltered over the first two dates for more than $192,000 in transactions between stables.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The $150,000 Advent victory by Kale’s Angel on Friday at Oaklawn Park was about so much more than his becoming a stakes winner, proving he could handle dirt, and possibly setting himself up for a two-turn test in a prep for the Arkansas Derby.  

The win was for Kale Robinson.

Robinson, 17, died in February. Tom Kagele, a relative who co-owns Kale’s Angel, named the horse for the teenager who was a competitive fisherman based in Texas.

Classic sire Daredevil has arrived back in Turkey to continue his stud career after standing in Kentucky for the past four seasons, the Turkish Jockey Club has revealed.

For the second time this fall, jockey Luan Machado was sanctioned by Kentucky stewards for failing to urge his mount through to the finish line in a race.

Machado was riding Hold My Bourbon in an allowance race on Nov. 28 at Churchill Downs, and the duo held a 2 1/2-length lead in midstretch. With Machado hand-riding to the wire, Lightline, under Flavien Prat, rallied down the center of the track to nail them by a neck at the wire.

Lightline, sent off as the second choice, returned $9.30 for the win. Hold My Bourbon went off at odds of 7.64-to-1.

Richard Papiese, principal in Midwest Thoroughbreds, North America’s leading owner by wins from 2010 through 2015, died on Dec. 4 in northwest Indiana.

Papiese, 65, for several years had been afflicted with multiple systems atrophy, MSA, a rare and fatal degenerative neurologic condition.

Papiese and his wife, Karen, founded, owned, and ran Midwest Custom Case, a successful store-fixture manufacturing company based in University Park, Il.

Famed equestrian and longtime thoroughbred trainer Rodney Jenkins died in his sleep Thursday, Dec. 5, at age 80.

Jenkins retired from the American show ring as the sport’s winningest rider and was inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 1999. He rode on 10 winning Nations Cups teams between 1973 and 1987 and earned two silver medals in the 1987 Pan American Games as a member of the U.S. Equestrian Team.