CYPRESS, Calif. – Jockey Geovanni Franco will not ride the first two weeks of the Los Alamitos summer meeting while recovering from a strained knee, his agent, James Giannone said on Thursday.

Franco, 27, may ride the final week of the Los Alamitos meeting, beginning July 12, but is more likely to focus on the start of the Del Mar summer meeting, which begins July 18. Franco was second in the standings at the Santa Anita spring-summer meeting that ended on June 24 with 28 wins.

“We’ve shut it down,” Giannone said. “I’m not going to hurry him.”

CYPRESS, Calif. – Anna Meah, an exercise rider and assistant trainer for Art Sherman and Richard Baltas for the last five years, plans to begin training this fall.

Meah and her husband, bloodstock agent David Meah, are hoping to establish a stable of 20 horses at Santa Anita following the Del Mar summer meeting.

“This has been our plan for the last three years,” Anna Meah said. “Now is the time to do it.

“We are aiming for Nov. 1 to be set up and on the track. We’ve got a foundation of clients. We expect to increase the numbers, maybe by the spring.”

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Although summer started June 21, for accounting purposes the Gulfstream Park summer meeting officially begins Sunday with an 11-race program highlighted by a $57,000 optional-claiming event carded at 7 1/2 furlongs on the turf for fillies and mares.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – If Sunday’s Arlington races do stay on grass and the turf course has give to it, Addae Do Jaguerete should feel right at home despite the fact she’ll be racing outside Brazil for the first time.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – At 1:26 Thursday afternoon Chris Banks watched a horse named Sperling finish first in the first race at Arlington. Hurray, and double hurray.

Sperling, claimed by Banks for $5,000 last October at Hawthorne, is the only horse in his stable, and the win was the first of his training career. His Thoroughbred training career, that is.

The dog days of summer officially get under way Sunday in Kentucky with the start of a 30-day race meet at Ellis Park.

Situated on a sliver of Kentucky land on the north bank of the Ohio River in Henderson, “The Pea Patch” will offer record purses while attracting many of the Kentucky circuit’s mainstays throughout a meet that runs through Labor Day, Sept. 3.

Per-day purses at Ellis will average up to $230,000 after the purse account was bolstered by a $2.9 million contribution from sister track Kentucky Downs. Last year, purses averaged about $210,000.

Owner Richard Klein said the $200,000 Troy Stakes, to be run Aug. 5 at 5 1/2 furlongs on the Saratoga turf, is the likely next start for Will Call, who was up in the final jump to win a $62,916 allowance Thursday over the Churchill turf.

Ridden by Shaun Bridgmohan, Will Call nipped Angaston in his first appearance since he won the Grade 3 Twin Spires Turf Sprint on the May 4 Kentucky Oaks undercard. The 4-year-old homebred colt is trained by Brad Cox.

“That was a salty group we beat,” Klein said.

McCraken in another work

Less than two months after winning the Kentucky Derby for the fifth time, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has been named to the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, it was announced this week by the Louisville Sports Commission. Baffert became just the second trainer to sweep the Triple Crown twice when Justify won the Belmont Stakes on June 9.

Joining Baffert in a group of seven honorees are Ken and Sarah Ramsey, the Nicholasville, Ky., couple who are perennial leading owners and breeders in Kentucky.

It wasn’t long ago that many Kentucky trainers, out of economic necessity, would take their stables out of state for July and August. The purse structure at Ellis Park wasn’t sufficient to make staying put feasible, so Saratoga or Delaware or Arlington became their summer homes.

For the first time in three years, Del Mar will have a different board of stewards for its summer meeting, which begins on July 18.

John Herbuveaux, a steward at Golden Gate Fields in recent months, will replace Scott Chaney for the seven-week meeting, according to California Horse Racing Board executive director Rick Baedeker.