MIAMI – Seven were entered for Friday’s $43,000 feature, a first-level optional claimer at five furlongs on the turf.

Trainer Brendan Walsh is among the early arrivals from Kentucky to have shipped a string to the Palm Meadows training center for the winter, and he’ll send out Zandar as the likely favorite should the race stay on the grass. Zandar won a higher-priced optional claimer going 6 1/2 furlongs over the Kentucky Downs grass course on Sept. 6 for his first win of the season and first since joining Walsh’s stable during the summer.

MIAMI – Nominations for the 2017 Claiming Crown were released earlier in the week, which means opening day of the 2017-18 Gulfstream Park Championship meeting is right around the corner.

For the sixth consecutive year, the Claiming Crown will kick off the meet. The Claiming Crown lured 294 nominations, including those of four defending champions – Super Spender (Canterbury), Tormenta de Oro (Glass Slipper), Chepstow (Iron Horse), and Shaft of Light (Rapid Transit). The Claiming Crown will consist of nine races worth more than $1.1 million in purses.

MIAMI – After having already danced twice this year on racing’s biggest stages, in the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic, Travers runner-up Gunnevera will likely do so again when he launches his 4-year-old campaign in the $16 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 27.

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This Saturday will begin the best two-week run in New York racing until next spring.

Twelve stakes with total purses of more than $1.82 million will be run Saturday through Sunday, Nov. 26. The following Saturday, Dec. 2, is Cigar Mile Day, when four stakes with combined purses of $1.45 million will be held at Aqueduct.

Trainer Tom Albertrani has shipped Breeders’ Cup Turf fourth-place finisher Sadler’s Joy to the Palm Meadows Training Center in south Florida, where he will be rested before gearing up for next season.

Late-running Sadler’s Joy earned a Win and You’re In fees-paid berth in the BC Turf by finishing fast to win the Grade 1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga. He broke from post 12 in the 13-horse Turf and trailed for more than a mile before rallying wide on the final turn.

Sadler’s Joy was beaten 2 1/4 lengths under Julien Leparoux, and earned $200,000 from the $4 million purse.

Jockey Trevor McCarthy hasn’t ridden since being injured in a May spill at Monmouth Park but expects to be cleared to start galloping horses early next month. When he returns to the races around the first of the year, McCarthy will be changing venues and leaving the friendly confines of Maryland for New York.

McCarthy will be teaming up at Aqueduct with agent Steve Rushing, who will continue to book mounts for Irad Ortiz Jr.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Dona Bruja will be a solid favorite as the 122-pound highweight Saturday in the Cardinal Handicap, but trainer Ignacio Correas said the star Argentine-bred will run only if the rainy forecast for Saturday does not overly affect the Churchill turf course.

The 44th running of the Grade 3, $100,000 Cardinal is the highlight of this weekend at Churchill.

“If it stays firm or good, we will run,” said Correas. “But yielding or soft, no way. There will be next year.”

Emerald Downs Racetrack and Casino announced that their 2018 meet will begin Sunday, April 22 and conclude Sunday, Sept. 30.

Following opening day, racing during the first part of the 70-day meet will be conducted on Saturdays and Sundays until May 6. Friday racing begins May 11 and will continue the remainder of the meet.

Post times are slightly different from last year. They are the same for Sundays, 2:00 p.m. Pacific, and Fridays, 6:30 p.m. The first seven Saturdays will have a 2:00 p.m. post time, but the final 16 Saturday cards will start at 5:00 p.m.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – He’s still a maiden, but that wouldn’t preclude Givemeaminit from being one of the favorites for the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, one of six graded stakes that help close the 21-day Churchill fall meet next week.

Givemeaminit was part of Dallas Stewart’s big Breeders’ Cup weekend when he finished fourth in the Juvenile despite never having won so much as a maiden race. Givemeaminit, a Louisiana-bred colt by Star Guitar, was third in the Hopeful at Saratoga and fifth in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hall of Fame trainer Jack Van Berg recently underwent surgery for cancer of his inner jaw but continues to train a stable that will move to Oaklawn Park in Arkansas shortly after the Churchill Downs fall meet ends Nov. 26.

Van Berg, 81, was diagnosed earlier this year with squamous cell carcinoma and underwent a second surgery Oct. 31 in Little Rock, Ark., in an attempt to eradicate the disease, said Van Berg’s son and assistant, Tom.