Officials at Keeneland Race Course on Wednesday released the stakes schedule for the 2019 fall meet with minimal change from the status quo. Eighteen stakes, 10 of them Breeders’ Cup Challenge races, will be worth nearly $5.7 million, a record for the Lexington, Ky. track.

The front-loaded meet starts with the three-day FallStars Weekend which includes most of the Breeders’ Cup preps, including five Grade 1 events. The 17-day meet runs Oct. 4-26.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Reigning Canadian champion 2-year-old male Avie’s Flatter got the outside post in a field of 14 and was made the 5-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate at Woodbine, the opening leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.

Trainer Larry Rivelli has the most horses at Arlington and many of the best horses at Arlington. He tends to dominate maiden racing at the meet, but his recent run of success with first-time-starting maidens has gotten ridiculous.

Escape Clause spent part of April and most of May with trainer Don Schnell’s small string at Canterbury Park, but who knows when – or if – she’ll return?

It’s rare that a trainer wins back-to-back $100,000 stakes on a single racing program – rarer still when that trainer also owns the horses. How about a trainer who owns the horses and bred them? And what if that trainer-owner-breeder had a broodmare band numbering a grand total of three?

Beginning July 3, the late pick-5 at New York Racing Association tracks will be available for all bettors across the country, the company announced on Wednesday.

Since the inception of the wager at the beginning of the 2016 Saratoga meet, the late pick-5 was restricted to horse players who had a NYRA Bets advance-deposit wagering account or those who wagered ontrack or at an in-state simulcast facility. Typically, the late pick-5 handled about 20 percent of the early pick-5, which has always been open to all players.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Eddie Kenneally barn at Churchill Downs is sometimes surrounded by sightseers and media during morning training hours, at least during peak times. After all, Bob Baffert is on one side and Bill Mott is on the other.

But Kenneally warrants attention, too, at least from everyday horseplayers. As the final three-day stretch of the Churchill spring meet begins Thursday, Kenneally had sent out 16 winners, second only to Steve Asmussen.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Replicating the success Ivan Dalos had as an owner-breeder in 2018 might be a tough thing to do in 2019, but Avie’s Flatter could go a long way to helping if he were to give Dalos his first victory in the $1 million Queen’s Plate on Saturday at Woodbine.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - No one loves racing at Ellis Park more than “Big John” Hancock, but before the 29-day summer meet gets started Sunday at the western Kentucky track, the trainer has some unfinished business at Churchill. He will send out one of the favorites in Alec and Arthur in the Grade 3 Bashford Manor, one of three stakes that call an end to the 38-day Churchill meet Saturday.

Alec and Arthur, a Successful Appeal colt owned by Hat Creek Racing, has won two of three starts, ending with a June 6 allowance romp at Churchill with Tyler Gaffalione aboard.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine’s new $8 million inner turf course is scheduled to be used Friday for the first time. The first race on it is a $25,000 claimer.

The seven-furlong layout was the harness track from 1994 to 2017, when Woodbine’s Standardbred division was moved to Woodbine at Mohawk Park.

Jockey Emma-Jayne Wilson rode Dun Drum in a five-furlong trial race in lane 2 on the new course last Friday.