Runaway Ghost is back home in New Mexico and pointing to the state’s richest race for 3-year-olds and up, the $200,000 Downs at Albuquerque Handicap on Aug. 3.

Runaway Ghost has won 5 of his 6 stakes starts in New Mexico, with his biggest scores coming in the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby in 2018 and the $150,000 Sunland Park Handicap on May 4. Following the Sunland Park Handicap, he traveled to Churchill Downs and ran eighth in the Grade 2 Stephen Foster on June 15.

“He came back good, had a good work this morning,” trainer Todd Fincher said Tuesday.

CYPRESS, Calif. – Los Alamitos will run seven races on Friday, one fewer than expected, and could have race cards of similar size before the meeting ends on July 14.

The track struggled to draw entries for Friday’s program, which has three five-horse fields, three six-horse fields and one race with 10 entrants. Racing secretary Bob Moreno said before the meeting began on June 29 that field size would be an issue that could affect the number of races run per day.

“It happened a little earlier than I thought it would,” Moreno said.

A five-person panel of veterinarians and racing officials will review the race, medical, and training records of horses entered at the Del Mar summer meeting, continuing a practice that began at Southern California tracks last month.

A panel reviewed the records of horses entered to race in the final two weeks of the Santa Anita spring-summer meeting, which ended on June 23. A similar program is in place at the Los Alamitos meeting, which runs through July 14. The Del Mar summer meeting begins July 17.

Santino is likely headed back to stakes competition after her allowance win last Sunday at Lone Star Park.

Trainer Matt Hebert on Wednesday was looking over options and said one race under consideration is the $100,000 Kentucky Downs Preview Ladies Turf at Ellis Park. The one-mile turf stakes for fillies and mares is Aug. 4.

“We’re eyeballing it,” said Hebert, who trains Santino for Susan Moulton. “Nothing’s set in stone.”

Mike Napoli’s major league baseball career got off to an auspicious beginning when he hit a home run in his first at bat for the Los Angeles Angels off no less an opponent than future Cy Young award winner Justin Verlander.

Napoli’s career as a racehorse owner has gotten off to a pretty fast start as well. The Florida native got into the business shortly after announcing his retirement from baseball last December, and is already celebrating his first owners’ title after registering 16 victories during Gulfstream Park’s recently concluded spring meet.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – It’s not often that the breeder of a major winner gets some post-race credit from the horse’s owners, but that was the case in Saturday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate, when Greg Hall and Brooke Hubbard thanked the victorious One Bad Boy’s breeder, Ron Clarkson, for producing the speedy son of Twirling Candy.

Clarkson and his daughter Debra Ehrat were both invited into the walking ring and winner’s circle by the owners. Ehrat said the victory was the thrill of a lifetime for her 80-year-old father, who has been breeding horses in Ontario for 56 years.

Entries are drawn and post positions assigned for the reconfigured Iowa Festival of Racing at Prairie Meadows, which has been compressed to two days and mainly is concentrated on Friday night’s card this year.

Dame Plata and Mister Banjoman, two of the most talented Minnesota-breds of their generation, meet again in the $50,000 Victor S. Myers, one of two six-furlong dirt-sprint stakes on the Thursday program at Canterbury Park.

The Myers (race 9, post time 8:10 Central) also drew El Tizar, who closed strongly over a sloppy Churchill Downs track to beat open maidens June 9 in his only start.

El Tizar might be talented enough to contend but he’s changing venues and barns – moving from Mike Tomlinson to Bernell Rhone – and will be playing catchup against two very quick horses.

ELMONT, N.Y. – With the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks on July 20 scheduled just three weeks after the Mother Goose, trainer Chad Brown said Sunday that Dunbar Road may skip the CCA Oaks and train up to the Grade 1 Alabama at Saratoga on Aug. 17.

Dunbar Road won Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Mother Goose by 2 1/2 lengths. She ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.54 and earned an 87 Beyer Speed Figure.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Mitole, winner of seven straight races, including the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont on June 8, returned to the work tab Sunday, breezing a half-mile in 51.07 seconds over the Oklahoma training track in Saratoga.

Bill Heiligbrodt, who along with his wife, Corinne, owns Mitole, said the horse would run next in Saratoga but was noncommittal about the specific race. Mitole is trained by Steve Asmussen.