ELMONT, N.Y. – La Verdad won the $150,000 Iroquois in back-to-back years for owner Sheila Rosenblum and trainer Linda Rice. On Saturday at Belmont Park, Hot City Girl will try to step in for her retired older sister when she heads a field of six entered in the Iroquois at 6 1/2 furlongs.

Hot City Girl, also owned by Rosenblum and trained by Rice, is coming off a 1 3/4-length victory in the Union Avenue Stakes at Saratoga. Prior to that, she finished third behind Haveyougoneaway and Quezon in the Dancing Renee.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Last year, Wonder Gal came off an eighth-place finish in the Grade 1 Test at seven furlongs to win the Empire Distaff at Belmont Park by a convincing 2 1/2 lengths. On Saturday, she will try to bounce back off a fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom at 6 1/2 furlongs in the $250,000 Distaff at 1 1/16 miles.

Trainer Leah Gyarmati said she and owner Jeff Treadway chose the Distaff over the $150,000 Iroquois at 6 1/2 furlongs because they felt the race would be “a little bit softer, and she won’t have to run off her feet,” Gyarmati said.

ELMONT, N.Y. – If Empire Dreams can finish 2016 like he did 2015, he certainly will have made up for lost time.

Over the last 10 weeks of 2015, Empire Dreams won the $300,000 Empire Classic and the $100,000 Alex M. Robb Handicap, while in between narrowly missing a third victory in a division of the New York Stallion Stakes.

Mokat, the California-based Grade 2 winner who finished fifth in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland last Saturday, will start in at least one more major stakes on turf this year.

Trainer Richard Baltas said he is considering running Mokat in the $300,000 Matriarch Stakes, for fillies and mares at a mile at Del Mar on Dec. 4, or the $300,000 American Oaks, for 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita in the final days of the year.

Trainer David O’Meara has confirmed that Mondialiste will be cross-entered in the Breeders’ Cup Mile and Breeders’ Cup Turf but said the Mile remains the most likely target.

Mondialiste won the Arlington Million, a Win and You’re In race offering a fees-paid berth in the Turf. But Mondialiste is a 6-year-old with 22 starts, a miler who never has raced farther than 1 1/4 miles, and it seems late in the game to stretch him out to 1 1/2 miles.

By way of Canada, the European contingent for the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 5 grew stronger last weekend.

Erupt won the Grade 1 Canadian International at Woodbine on Sunday, a performance expected to lead to a relatively quick turnaround to the BC Turf. Erupt was available at 7-1 or 8-1 with British bookmakers on Wednesday, behind the New York-based Flintshire (2-1) and the Europeans Highland Reel (5-2) and Found (3-1).

Elliott Walden said he would “absolutely” like to run Theory in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita on Nov. 5. He hopes the horse is equally as eager.

ARCADIA, Calif. – At intervals of a little more than an hour on Wednesday, Dortmund, Noted and Quoted, and Klimt had key workouts at Santa Anita for Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 4-5.

The three Grade 1 stakes winners, all trained by Bob Baffert, figure to be prominent in the betting for their respective races. Dortmund, who worked a half-mile in 47.40 seconds, will start in the BC Dirt Mile on Nov. 4. Noted and Quoted, who worked five furlongs in 1:00, is bound for the BC Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 5, the same day Klimt runs in the BC Juvenile.

Since the inception of the Breeders’ Cup as a year-end event to attract top horses from the world over, the turf events have done their part, attracting standout European-based runners who have established themselves as champions here.

No doubt it has been a productive period in Kentucky for Jose Ortiz, whose final day of riding at his first Keeneland meet will be Friday. Into Wednesday, Ortiz had mount earnings of $718,310 for the meet, third behind Julien Leparoux and Florent Geroux.

But for bettors faithfully backing Ortiz, it hasn’t been that great. From his first 52 mounts, Ortiz had seven wins, nine seconds, and 11 thirds, with a return on investment of just $0.91 per $2 win wager. His record with favorites was 5 for 16, with an ROI of $1.76.