SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Sophie Doyle knew that trainer Larry Jones’s phone was constantly ringing this winter with calls from jockey agents wanting to know if he was considering making a rider change for his 3-year-old filly Street Band.

Finally, after Doyle won the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks on Street Band in March, Doyle said Jones told her, “That just put everybody to bed who kept ringing and asking to take you off.”

“It’s really nice to have that kind of faith and trust from Mr. Jones,” Doyle said.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – After missing the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes on Aug. 3 with what his connections said was a fever, Thunder Snow was going to be re-routed to the Grade 1 Woodward here Aug. 31.

But those plans have been scrapped, and Thunder Snow on Tuesday returned to trainer Saeed bin Suroor’s yard at Newmarket. Suroor told Attheraces.com that he still hopes to get Thunder Snow to the Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita but where he runs before then is not decided.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Last summer, Saratoga was a disaster for Fire Key, who ran three times at the meet and beat a total of one horse. There were excuses.

Fire Key didn’t handle a boggy turf course in the Caress Stakes. She didn’t care for the dirt in an off-the-turf allowance two weeks later. Lastly, she had to avoid a fallen horse and ultimately was the last one across the finish line in the Smart N Fancy Stakes.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Elizabeth Dobles will make her Saratoga debut as a trainer with Vow to Recover in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Lake Placid Stakes, but she is no stranger to the Spa.

Dobles previously worked for trainer Jeremiah Englehart.

“It was before he went big time, but I was there for a few winners,” Dobles said Wednesday from Florida.

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DEL MAR, Calif. –For a few moments in the Grade 3 Cougar II Handicap on July 24 at Del Mar, Itsinthepost looked poised to score an upset over the heavily favored Campaign. Itsinthepost led by a length with a furlong remaining, but could not hold off his rival, who won by 1 1/4 lengths.

Saturday, both are entered in important stakes – Campaign runs in the $1 million Pacific Classic, while Itsinthepost will have his third consecutive appearance in the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap at 1 3/8 miles on turf.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The only champion on display on Saturday’s five-stakes program at Del Mar may not go favored.

Stormy Liberal, the champion turf male of 2018, will race for the first time since March in the Grade 3 Green Flash Handicap at five furlongs on turf. The favorite for the $100,000 race may be Eddie Haskell, a two-time stakes winner this year who has won four of his last five starts.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Mihos, who failed to have an impact in both the Grade 3 Dwyer and Grade 2 Jim Dandy in his last two appearances, could make his next start on the grass, trainer Jimmy Jerkens said earlier this week.

Jockey Tyler Baze was expected back in action this week after having a few days to get over the soreness that resulted from being thrown hard to the ground by his mount, My Mertie, in the first step out of the starting gate in the Groupie Doll at Ellis Park.

Following the Groupie Doll, Baze, 36, rode two races that ended the Sunday card, but his rib cage was hurting so much that he drove himself to the emergency room at a hospital in New Albany, Ind., on his way back to Louisville “just out of precaution,” said his agent, Vic Stauffer.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Now that Go Google Yourself has won her first stakes, the 4-year-old filly will go for graded type next – and might not have to face any of the Grade 1 winners she met in June.

Fresh from her three-length victory Sunday at Ellis Park in the $125,000 Groupie Doll, Go Google Yourself will be pointed to the Grade 3, $200,000 Locust Grove on Sept. 14 at her home track of Churchill Downs, said trainer Paul McGee.

No one could have imagined three years ago when Fast Pass was running in $4,000 claiming races that someday he would be so highly regarded as to merit an invitation to a $1 million race in Korea.

But that’s what has happened, and his trainer, Peter Walder, couldn’t be more pumped.

“It’s so cool,” Walder said this week from Gulfstream Park in South Florida. “I’m honored, I’m excited. I’ve never been to that part of the world and I can’t wait to see it.”