ELMONT, N.Y. – Practical Joke, a three-time Grade 1 winner, worked four furlongs in 48.45 seconds Saturday morning over the Belmont Park main track as he continues preparations for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 3 at Del Mar.

Practical Joke worked in company with the 2-year-old maiden winner Engage, and the pair got their last three furlongs in 35.55 seconds and galloped out an additional eighth of a mile in 12.65. Engage is scheduled to run in the Grade 3, $150,000 Futurity here next Saturday.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Mind Your Biscuits picked up the pace in his preparations for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint by working a sharp half-mile in 46.72 seconds Saturday morning over the Belmont Park main track.

The move, timed in splits of 23.12 and 23.60, was done immediately after the track reopened following the 8:30 a.m. renovation break. Joel Rosario, the colt’s regular rider, was aboard for the breeze. Mind Your Biscuits galloped out five furlongs in 59.65.

MIAMI – The popularity of Gulfstream Park’s year-round racing program continues to grow, especially at the mutuel windows.

Total handle for the combined spring and summer meetings, encompassing 111 racing days from April 4 to Oct. 1, was $603 million, an increase of $46.9 million over the corresponding period in 2016 despite five fewer racing dates. The daily average handle of $5.44 million was an increase of nearly $640,000 daily over the previous year.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Not all 2-year-olds are trying to make it to the Breeders’ Cup.

Last weekend, Avery Island and Navajo each won a maiden race at Belmont Park, and they are pointing to the opening-week juvenile stakes at Aqueduct.

On Sept. 30, Avery Island, a son of 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense, won a 1 1/16-mile race by 5 1/4 lengths in his second start, after having finished seventh in his debut sprinting. Joe Bravo rode him in both starts. Avery Island will point to the Grade 2, $200,000 Nashua, a one-turn mile, on Nov. 5.

ELMONT, N.Y. – There will be a nine-race program at Belmont Park on Monday, Columbus Day, topped by the Grade 2, $200,000 Knickerbocker Stakes for 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/8 miles on the turf.

A field of 11 was entered for the grass, with one entered in the event the race is transferred to the main track. Through Friday, there have been 101 turf races run at this meet with zero taken off the turf. There is rain in the forecast, however.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown made his first foray into the European yearling market this week, attending the Tattersalls yearling auction in Newmarket. He did not leave empty-handed.

Brown purchased 12 yearlings, six each for Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm and Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Mark Casse was up before 5 a.m. Friday so as to make his commercial flight out of Gainesville, Fla., in time for the 1:05 opener of the Keeneland fall meet. His flight was canceled, but that didn’t keep the Casse-trained Gio Game from dominating her six opponents in the $65,000 maiden special weight route.

“She looked pretty good running off by herself on the screen,” Casse said by phone, adding he hoped to be on hand later in the day by way of a private jet out of Ocala.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – With its oversubscribed field, options for the Grade 3 Bourbon on Sunday are almost limitless – but trainer Vickie Foley is hoping handicappers don’t have to look any further than the No. 1 horse, Tigers Rule.

A sharp two-length winner of a maiden race last month at Kentucky Downs, Tigers Rule has Foley and her numerous partners in the Kitten’s Joy colt excited about his future prospects.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The turf-course maximum was exceeded when entries were drawn here Friday for theGrade 3, $150,000 Jessamine Stakes, the ninth and final Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In event of the meet.

Sixteen 2-year-old fillies will be on the program for the Jessamine, which anchors an eight-race Wednesday card, although only as many as 14 can start. The 1 1/16-mile race is a prep for the Nov. 3 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – New Money Honey is among the Chad Brown contingent that has settled in at Keeneland, as the star turf filly looms the biggest name for the final Grade 1 race of the fall meet, the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup.

New Money Honey, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf last fall and the Belmont Oaks in July, is one of 11 3-year-old fillies whose connections have accepted invitations to the 34th QE II, to be run next Saturday, Oct. 14.