DEL MAR, Calif. – The Best Pal on Saturday is the final prep for the Grade 1, $300,000 Del Mar Futurity on closing day, Sept. 2. The Futurity favorite may have been revealed on Sunday at Del Mar when Eight Rings scored an overpowering victory in his debut, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 94.

Eight Rings, a son of Empire Maker, was purchased as a yearling for $520,000 by a partnership of SF Racing, Madaket Stables, and Starlight Racing, which sent a score of 2-year-olds to trainer Bob Baffert this year.

“He looked good, didn’t he?” Baffert said.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Fresh off a victory with Amalfi Sunrise in the Sorrento Stakes for 2-year-old fillies last Saturday, trainer Simon Callaghan will try to add the Grade 2, $200,000 Best Pal Stakes for 2-year-olds this Saturday at Del Mar with Schrodinger, who like Amalfi Sunrise makes his stakes debut following a first-out win against maidens.

Schrodinger was 2-5 when he beat five rivals at Los Alamitos going five furlongs on June 30. The Best Pal is at six furlongs.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The connections of Got Stormy were so impressed by the way their filly drew off to win Saturday’s De La Rose Stakes at Saratoga that they turned right around and made her a supplemental nominee for Saturday’s Grade 1 Fourstardave.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A Thread of Blue, upset winner of Sunday’s $1 million Saratoga Derby at 1 3/16 miles, could try and stretch out to 1 1/2 miles in the $1 million Jockey Club Derby at Belmont on Sept. 7.

A Thread of Blue got loose on the lead in the Saratoga Derby and was able to hold off Digital Age by a length. He covered 1 3/16 miles under Luis Saez in 1:52.02 and earned a career-best 95 Beyer.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Rusty Arnold will be a busy man on Sept. 7, with horses to run in stakes at Belmont Park and Kentucky Downs.

Arnold plans to run Concrete Rose at Belmont Park in the $750,000 Jockey Club Oaks, the third and final leg of the New York Racing Association’s Turf Trinity for 3-year-old fillies. At Kentucky Downs, he will have Leinster for the Grade 3, $700,000 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint and Morticia for the Grade 3, $500,000 Ladies Sprint at 6 1/2 furlongs.

“It’s a very good problem to have. We’ll figure out how to work it out,” Arnold said.

Even when he gets away from Saratoga, Ian Wilkes can’t seem to get away from fellow trainer Chad Brown.

Wilkes is dispatching the promising 3-year-old colt Ry’s the Guy to the Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes on Saturday at Arlington Park, where Brown will be front and center with two of the likely favorites, Fog of War and Valid Point. The Secretariat is being run at one mile for the first time in a significant reduction from its traditional distance of 1 1/4 miles.

Thunder Snow will be pointed to the Grade 1 Woodward on Aug. 31 after scratching from Saturday's Whitney due to an elevated temperature diagnosed following a brief training session the morning of the race.

While trainer Saeed bin Suroor returned to England, Thunder Snow remained in Saratoga, moving from the quarantine barn on the Oklahoma side of Saratoga to the Greentree training facility adjacent to the backstretch of the main track. Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum, owner of Thunder Snow, owns the Greentree property.

Chance It earned a second consecutive Beyer Speed Figure of 91 in winning the Dr. Fager Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park while further entrenching himself among the elite 2-year-olds in South Florida this summer.

Trained by Saffie Joseph Jr. for the Shooting Star Thoroughbreds partnership, managed by Mary Lightner, Chance It was coming off a 92 Beyer in a June 29 maiden victory. Lightner said potential buyers’ inquiries have been fielded but turned down.

“It’s hard to get a really good horse like him,” she said.

Santa Anita inspected the grading of the main track and is installing a new drainage system under the inside rail in preparation for the track’s autumn meeting, which begins in late September.

Track consultant Dennis Moore said on Friday the grading of the main track was completed after stables left Santa Anita for Del Mar last month.

“We took it all the way down to the base and made sure the grade and the base was all right, and it is,” he said in a phone interview. “We found nothing wrong with it.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Omaha Beach is quickly coming to hand. In only his third official work since going back in training, he went five furlongs in 59.80 seconds on Sunday morning at Del Mar, the fastest time of the 75 drills at the distance.

Mike Smith, back in town following a Saturday night flight home from Saratoga, where he won the Whitney on McKinzie, was up for trainer Richard Mandella.

Mandella, who might be trying out for "Dancing With the Stars" with the fancy footwork he’s shown following Omaha Beach’s last two works, said watching Omaha Beach was “exciting.”