ARCADIA, Calif. – David Hofmans, trying to pull off one of the great training achievements in Breeders’ Cup history, gave Melatonin a sharp final work Wednesday morning at Santa Anita in preparation for the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday.

ARCADIA, Calif. – If there were wagering on which jockey will earn the Bill Shoemaker Award for outstanding rider at the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita, Mike Smith would have to be considered the favorite. The all-time winningest jockey in Breeders’ Cup history (22 wins, $28.9 million in mount earnings), Smith has such top horses as Songbird, Arrogate, and Masochistic among his nine BC rides.

The recently concluded Parx Fall Festival resulted in improved field size, better racing, and a bump in handle, but it is not a certainty to be brought back in 2017.

This was the second year Parx has held the festival, which ran Oct. 1-25.

In 2015, the festival went for eight weeks. It began on Smarty Jones Stakes Day, Aug. 29, included Pennsylvania Derby Day, and continued until the third week in October. Five $150,000 stakes were added to the schedule, and purses averaged approximately $500,000 per day.

Last Saturday at Belmont Park, Jose Ortiz won both divisions of a maiden race for 2-year-olds, and the horse he wasn’t even scheduled to ride may turn out to be racing’s next big star.

That’s the type of year it has been for Ortiz, who in 2016 has escaped the shadow of his older brother Irad, and like Takaful – the aforementioned 2-year-old colt whom Ortiz picked up at the draw – has emerged as potentially racing’s next big riding star.

Gunnevera, winner of the Grade 2 Saratoga Special, and Pat On the Back, a New York-bred stakes winner, were among 20 horses pre-entered Tuesday in the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot. The mile and a sixteenth race for 2-year-olds will be run Nov. 19.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Laura Wohlers, amateur handicapper and peripatetic horse trainer, knows that guesswork is a part of horse racing. When she sends out Runhappy as one of the favorites Friday in the 10th running of the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita, she – like most everyone else – can only guess at how the colt will fare.

“Ideally, you don’t want to go into the Breeders’ Cup with only one race under your belt,” Wohlers said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – The Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap will be worth $750,000 in 2017, down from $1 million the last two years, and the Grade 1 American Oaks has been moved from the spring to late December of this year as part of a 61-race stakes schedule for the 2016-17 winter-spring meeting at Santa Anita.

The winter-spring meet runs from Dec. 26 to April 9 and is the first of two meetings at Santa Anita in the first six months of the year. The track will run a spring-summer meeting from April 14 to July 4.

ARCADIA, Calif. – When the English jockey Harry Bentley stepped off the plane Sunday at LAX, it was onto terra incognita. Not only has Bentley never ridden a race in this country, he had not even been here until this week.

Bentley rides Limato on Saturday in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and it is fair to wonder if a young English rider will be disadvantaged at Santa Anita, which has a turf course unlike any in Europe. But Bentley has riding experience far beyond Europe that might help compensate for his lack of familiarity with North American-style racing.

ELMONT, N.Y. – For most of the year, trainer Chad Brown has been too busy moving forward to take time to look back. But as interest increased in Lady Eli’s remarkable return to Grade 1 form after her battle with life-threatening laminitis, Brown has begun thinking about where his filly is and where she’s been.

At this time last year, Lady Eli was on a farm in Kentucky getting some paddock time while on the upswing from laminitis. The illness arose after she stepped on a nail while walking back to her barn following a victory in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks on July 4, 2015.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita officials are hopeful that the Breeders’ Cup races Friday and Saturday will draw at least 100,000 fans for the two days.

“The weather looks right,” said track senior vice president Joe Morris. “The presales are strong. We should be there.”

Morris said approximately 35,000 people are expected to attend Friday’s program, while Saturday’s attendance is predicted to reach 65,000.

“We could get close to 70,000,” Morris said.