ELMONT, N.Y. - Gronkowski, the Belmont Stakes runner-up, completed preparations for a start in next Saturday’s Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup by working five furlongs in 1:00.87 Saturday morning over the Belmont main track.

Gronkowski worked in company with the Chilean-bred mare Wow Cat - who is pointing to the Grade 1 Beldame on Oct. 6 - with the two getting their final quarter in 24.21 seconds. They galloped-out six furlongs in 1:13.70.

“I think the horse is fit and strong,” trainer Chad Brown said. “He went perfect for me.”

ELMONT, N.Y. – Sistercharlie, the leader of the female turf division, most likely will miss the Grade 1 Flower Bowl at Belmont Park on Oct. 7 and be trained up to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, trainer Chad Brown said Saturday.

Sistercharlie, a three-time Grade 1 winner this year, missed some training due to a foot bruise, Brown said. She has not worked since winning the Grade 1 Beverly D. at Arlington Park on Aug. 11, though she is scheduled to breeze Sunday morning at Belmont.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – She Takes Heart, hopelessly overmatched against Abel Tasman and Elate in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign last month at Saratoga, is back home and in the entries here at Gulfstream on Sunday.

But she’ll need some help from Mother Nature to run, since she’s entered as one of the three main-track-only horses in the $48,000 eighth race, an optional claimer for fillies and mares at 7 1/2 furlongs on the turf.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Which 2-year-old has registered the highest Beyer Speed Figure in the division at this point of the season? A hint: He’s not stabled on the West Coast with Bob Baffert or Jerry Hollendorfer. Nor is he based in New York with either Chad Brown or Todd Pletcher.

Trainer Jimmy Padgett is closing out a strong meet at the Downs at Albuquerque and the barn has not even called on its biggest gun, Jessies First Down.

That will change Sunday, when the two-time world champion runs in the $300,000 Fall Quarter Horse Championship.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Gift Box, fourth in the 2016 Travers Stakes but unraced since a win at Aqueduct in March, has been bought by California-based owners Pete and Kosta Hronis, trainer John Sadler said.

Sadler said Gift Box will join his stable this fall and be pointed for a 2019 campaign at Santa Anita.

“He can be a player in the handicap division,” Sadler said.

CYPRESS, Calif. – Mucho Gusto is the latest in a remarkable string of 2-year-old winners for trainer Bob Baffert in the last 60 days.

On Thursday at Los Alamitos, Mucho Gusto led throughout a maiden special weight race at six furlongs to post a four-length victory in his career debut. Since the beginning of the Del Mar summer meeting on July 18 and through Thursday at Los Alamitos, Baffert has won 12 maiden special weight races with 2-year-olds and one stakes –the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity with Game Winner.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Kyle Frey, the champion apprentice jockey of 2011, will be sidelined until next summer after sustaining a knee injury when he was unseated in a post parade at Del Mar in July.

Frey is scheduled to meet with an orthopedic surgeon on Thursday to discuss surgical options for a torn anterior cruciate ligament, according to his agent, Bill Sadoo.

“If he makes it back in a year, it would be good,” Sadoo said. “Maybe next summer at Del Mar. We’ll be trying for that.”

ELMONT, N.Y. – Shirley Day Smith, who spent more than 60 years as an administrative assistant in the press office at the New York Racing Association and its predecessors, died Thursday after a brief illness. She was 99.

Smith began working in racing before women were allowed to work at the track, and worked out of offices in Manhattan, according to a friend, the freelance writer Paula Rodenas.

CYPRESS, Calif. –Lovely Finish was being walked back to the Los Alamitos stables late Thursday afternoon when trainer Joe Herrick began to plot her next race.

Minutes earlier, Lovely Finish had run third in a maiden special weight sprint for California-breds, her first start since November – and first since Lovely Finish sustained burns in the devastating fire that struck the San Luis Rey Downs training center in December. Lovely Finish was burned on her head, neck, and back, and the 56-year-old Herrick was hospitalized with burns on his head and neck.