ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Tommy Massis has gained notoriety as a successful contest player, but the outspoken professional gambler has made his mark as an owner this year with several productive claimed runners trained by Norm McKnight.

Last Friday, Massis won a $40,000 event going seven furlongs with the erratic Nashville Knight, who was moving up off a $25,000 claim. The speedy Nashville Knight grabbed an uncontested lead and never looked back to prevail with an 88 Beyer Speed Figure, the third highest of his career.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. -- The New York Racing Association has scheduled 47 cards of racing at Aqueduct through the first quarter of 2020, and the stakes program will virtually mirror that of the first quarter of 2019.

The January-through-March schedule is part of a 59-day 2019-20 Aqueduct winter meet that officially begins on Dec. 12. The December dates were announced earlier this year.

A deep field is taking shape for the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby when the autumn turf festival commences Saturday at Del Mar, but 1 1/8-mile Derby will not include a key contender that would have been among the favorites.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – There was little drama in the race for the trainer’s title during the Gulfstream Park West Fall Turf Festival. Saffie Joseph Jr. dominated the standings with 22 victories, easily outdistancing Ralph Nicks, Jorge Navarro, and Victor Barboza, who finished tied for second with eight wins apiece.

“Everything fell into place right from the start. The horses ran well and stayed in good form throughout the meet,” Joseph said on Monday. “The team worked really hard, and in this business we’re only as good as the team and the owners we have behind us.”

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Entries for the first of the 89 cards to be run at the 2019-20 Gulfstream Park Championship meet were drawn Sunday. If opening day is any indication, fans can be assured of two things throughout the course of the winter – full fields and plenty of turf racing, weather permitting.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 22nd year of Churchill Downs offering parimutuel futures on the Kentucky Derby starts Thursday, when the first of four pools toward the 2020 Derby opens at noon Eastern.

There will be 22 separately listed wagering interests; a “filly only” interest, which debuted last year in Pool 1, offered as No. 23; and a mutuel field (No. 24), which has closed as the Pool 1 favorite every year since Churchill first unveiled the Kentucky Derby Future Wager in 1999.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Tax, winner of the Grade 2 Jim Dandy, and Performer, winner of all three of his starts this year, head the probables for Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Discovery Stakes for 3-year-olds at Aqueduct.

Tax, trained by Danny Gargan, has not run since finishing seventh in the Travers on Aug. 24. He was scratched from the Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park in late September due to a temperature. He completed his preparations for the Discovery by working a half-mile in 49.80 seconds Saturday over the Belmont Park training track.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After going through all of her conditions unblemished, Arrifana will make her stakes debut in Friday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Comely Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Aqueduct.

Arrifana, a daughter of Curlin owned by Gunpowder Farms and Millennium Farms and trained by Kelly Rubley, was one of eight 3-year-old fillies entered in the Comely, scheduled for 1 1/8 miles on the main track.

New Orleans is a city spinning on an axis of tradition, and Fair Grounds Race Course is getting back to its roots this year, returning to a traditional Thanksgiving Day meet opener for the first time since 2012.

But while there have been horse races run since roughly 1838 along Gentilly Boulevard in New Orleans, site of the current Churchill Downs Inc.-owned track, Fair Grounds even now casts about for its place in the winter racing landscape.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Split My Pants finished sixth in his stakes debut in the Bunty Lawless Stakes in his most recent start on Oct. 20 and is pointing to another stakes engagement for his next start. Trainer Catherine Day Phillips said Split My Pants is on track for a start in the $100,000 Sir Barton Stakes for Ontario-sired 3-year-olds and up over 1 1/16 miles on Tapeta on Saturday.