HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After a nine-month absence, trainer Peter Walder’s name is back in the entries at Gulfstream Park, where he will send out two starters on Sunday, including Starship Zorro as one of the key contenders in the $47,000 optional-claiming feature.

Walder, who has won 796 races and maintained a stellar 24 percent win rate through his training career, said he had been away because of a “non-racing-related personal issue” that prevented him from obtaining a license from the state.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The spring meet came to an end on Friday for the purpose of deciding the jockey, trainer, and owner titles, with none of the three races close at the end.

Tyler Gaffalione dominated the rider standings, with Edgard Zayas easily second. Emisael Jaramillo, Luca Panici, and Miguel Vasquez rounded out the top five.

The centerpieces of next Saturday’s Stars and Stripes card are the $1.2 million Belmont Derby Invitational and the $1 million Belmont Oaks. Since both 1 1/4-mile turf races are invitationals, the fields are still in flux as the New York Racing Association continues to invite horses.

While the fields may grow, both races have a solid core.

A. P. Indian, who would have been a major player in next Saturday’s Grade 2 Belmont Sprint Championship, will be forced to skip the race after coming out of his June 17 breeze at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland with filling in an ankle, trainer Arnaud Delacour said.

The injury was minor, and A. P. Indian has resumed training.

“He came back with filling in an ankle after his last breeze,” Delacour said. “I sent him to New Bolton to get checked out, and everything looks good. It was a minor setback, but we missed a little time and are going to skip the race.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Larry Melancon visited Churchill Downs twice during the final few days of the meet as the retired jockey continues to recover from a debilitating stroke he suffered March 3 while vacationing in North Carolina.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Put Da Blame On Me held off Mines and Magic following a torrid throwdown in the Thursday feature at Churchill and probably stamped her ticket to the biggest race of the Ellis Park meet, the Grade 3, $100,000 Groupie Doll.

With Jimmy Graham riding for trainer Mike Tomlinson, Put Da Blame On Me beat Mines and Magic by a head in the $59,188 allowance at seven furlongs. Both 4-year-old fillies were scratched from the Grade 3 Chicago Handicap five days earlier.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The bulk of the Churchill Downs riding colony will stay in Kentucky for much of the summer and move two hours westward to Ellis Park, although a few will ride at Saratoga and other tracks. Ellis, which begins its meet Saturday, will run Fridays through Sundays following a four-day holiday weekend to open the 31-day meet.

Julien Leparoux, Florent Geroux, and Shaun Bridgmohan are the only Churchill regulars who intend to ride daily at Saratoga, which runs July 21 to Sept. 4, but other Kentucky jockeys will make spot appearances there and elsewhere.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – State of Honor will join an exclusive club on Sunday at Woodbine in the $1 million Queen’s Plate: He will become just the fifth horse in the last 50 years to run in both the Kentucky Derby and the first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.

Owners Manfred and Penny Conrad of Conrad Farms certainly are enjoying the ride.

“We’re very excited to be in another big race,” Manfred Conrad said.

Beach Patrol will take on the California shippers Itsinthepost and Liam the Charmer in the Grade 1 United Nations at Monmouth Park on Saturday. The $300,000 turf marathon has drawn a field of nine and will be the finale on an 11-race card.

Beach Patrol is one of the top turf runners in the country, but he's been having trouble finishing off his competition and has not won in five starts since his victory last August at Arlington Park in the Grade 1 Secretariat. Most recently, he finished fourth, beaten 1 1/2 lengths, in the Grade 1 Manhattan at Belmont Park.

Alex Canchari has come so close to winning riding titles at Canterbury Park. Last year, he fell one win short of leading rider Dean Butler, and the same thing happened in 2014. In 2013, Canchari finished the Canterbury meet two wins out of the top spot.

This summer, Canchari had just come back from a three-day suspension to win six races on June 15 and June 16 at Canterbury and take a one-win lead in the rider standings when, through his own doing, he compromised his chance of winning his first Canterbury title.