OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Remsen Stakes lost a key player before entries when trainer Shug McGaughey said Tuesday that Champagne runner-up Code of Honor would not run.

McGaughey wasn’t satisfied with how Code of Honor worked on Monday at Belmont Park and plans to wait until the Gulfstream Park meet to run the horse again.

His defection helped create a late run to the entry box with Tax, Chinomado, and Gladiator King all being entered after news of Code of Honor’s defection.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Though Coolmore has already advertised Mendelssohn as an addition to its North American stallion roster in 2019, the speedy 3-year-old will have two more starts before he begins his stud career, beginning with Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct.

Mendelssohn is also expected to run in the $9 million Pegasus at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26, 2019.

The countdown is on for Karl Broberg.

With a month of racing left in 2018, he has a chance to become just the third trainer in history to win 500 or more races in a calendar year in North America. Steve Asmussen first accomplished the feat in 2004 and Scott Lake followed in 2006.

Broberg had 466 wins through Tuesday. For the final weeks of the year he will be racing at Delta Downs, Remington Park, and Fair Grounds.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Mike Maker is commonly referred to as the king of the Claiming Crown. But this year, there is a new sheriff in town.

Maker, who has won more races – 16 – than any other trainer in Claiming Crown history, will be overshadowed in Saturday’s 20th renewal by Jorge Navarro, who entered 16 horses in the nine Claiming Crown races on the opening-day program of the 2018-19 Gulfstream Championship meet.

Carrick was halfway through the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park on Sept. 29 when trainer Tom Morley saw alarming signals. Carrick, 3, was struggling on the soft turf.

“We could see it on the backstretch,” Morley recalled on Wednesday. “He was not handling the ground.”

Carrick finished 27 1/2 lengths behind winner Channel Maker in the Joe Hirsch, his debut against older horses. That loss ended any thoughts of starting Carrick in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3.

It’s been a good start to the Fair Grounds meet for trainer Hugh Robertson. Wynn Time made a successful return to the races, winning the Thanksgiving Handicap, and on Sunday the 2-year-old filly Smila’ssenseofsnow ran her record to 2 for 2 with a 1 1/2-length first-level allowance victory.

Almost everything went right for trainer Al Stall in the early stages of the last two Fair Grounds meetings.

From the Nov. 18 start of the 2016-17 meet through Dec. 15, 2016, Stall’s record at Fair Grounds was 20-7-3-1. During the same period last year, his stable really crushed it, going 38-11-9-2. So far this season? Twenty-one starts, zero winners, eight seconds, and three thirds.

Almost everything has been going wrong: Poor post positions and poor starts have produced more failures in New Orleans than have strictly poor performances.

DEL MAR, Calif. - The Grade 1 CashCall Futurity on Dec. 8 at Los Alamitos will be headed by the unbeaten Improbable, who worked seven furlongs at Santa Anita on Tuesday in 1:27 in his penultimate drill for the race.

Improbable is one of two horses trainer Bob Baffert said he will run in the Futurity. He also intends to start Mucho Gusto, winner of the Bob Hope at Del Mar on Nov. 17.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer swept last Sunday’s stakes at Del Mar with Battle of Midway in the Native Diver and Flying Scotsman in the Cecil B. DeMille, and now he’ll be taking aim at some of the biggest prizes left on the circuit this year, including the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes on closing day here Sunday with Vasilika.

“It’s a tough race, but we’ve got a tough horse,” Hollendorfer said.