SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Songbird likely will face four challengers in Sunday’s Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks. The purse will be $500,000 provided Songbird starts.

The other confirmed starters are Carina Mia, the Grade 1 Acorn winner; Weep No More, the Grade 1 Ashland winner; and Mo d’Amour, fourth in the Mother Goose last out.

Either Paola Queen, second in the Gulfstream Oaks, or Go For Broke, a winner of two of three starts, will be the other challenger. Entries for the CCA Oaks were to be taken Thursday.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Eddie Kenneally could be in a position to win his first graded stakes at Saratoga when he sends out Bitumen in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Sanford Stakes for 2-year-olds.

The Sanford, run at six furlongs, drew a field of only five, including supplemental entrant Bay Numbers. The race will be carded as the third on an 11-race program that also includes the Grade 1 Diana for fillies and mares on turf.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The warm-up stakes are over for American Freedom, the late-developing 3-year-old trained by Bob Baffert.

After winning stakes at Pimlico and Prairie Meadows in his last two starts, American Freedom will have his Grade 1 debut in the $1.25 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 31. On Wednesday at Del Mar, American Freedom worked six furlongs in 1:12.20, a major exercise in the buildup to the Haskell.

“I was looking for a strong work, and he got it,” Baffert said.

DEL MAR, Calif. – After a game second to Melatonin in the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita on June 25, Win the Space will be an outsider in Saturday’s $200,000 San Diego Handicap at 1 1/16 miles at Del Mar. Typically, a second-place finish in the Gold Cup would make Win the Space a leading contender in the Grade 2 San Diego. But the race came up unusually tough this year and is led by California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year, and Dortmund, a millionaire multiple stakes winner.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Saturday’s renewal of the Grade 1 Diana is shaping up as one of the best in the 77-year history of the event, due in large part to trainer Chad Brown, who will lead over four of the 10 starters in the 1 1/8-mile turf fixture for fillies and mares.

Brown will saddle two of the likely favorites in Dacita and Wekeela, along with Mrs McDougal, the winner of the Grade 2 Lake George on opening day here last summer, and Rainha Da Bateria.

Six-time stakes winner Roadhog has been retired, according to his longtime trainer, Elizabeth Merryman.

Roadhog, 9, won stakes at Laurel Park, Parx Racing, Presque Isle, and Penn National. He retired with 10 wins from 44 starts and earnings of $670,264.

Owned and bred by the Ellendale Racing LLC of Ellen Lea and Dale Schilling, Roadhog is going to become Lea’s riding horse. Lea and Schilling own Willow Lake Farm in Bucks County, Pa.

Antonio Gallardo went 4 for 5 at Presque Isle Downs on Tuesday evening to extend his lead in the rider standings to 19. The final win was his 1,000th in North America.

Gallardo’s career has been on the upswing for several years, but when he first came to the United States from his native Spain in 2008, things were quite different.

“I went to Miami, to Palm Meadows,” Gallardo said. “It was very hard. Nobody would even let me jog a horse.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – It will be no surprise when either Todd Pletcher or Chad Brown wins this year’s Saratoga training title. Nor will it be shocking to see Bill Mott, Christophe Clement, Kiaran McLaughlin, and Linda Rice in the top 10.

But they can’t win all the races. Many summers, there are trainers who greatly exceed expectations at Saratoga. Here’s a handful of trainers, listed alphabetically, who might win more races than you’d think.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In the first hour on his first morning in Saratoga this summer, jockey Florent Geroux worked two graded stakes winners for trainer Steve Asmussen.

“You spoiled me on my first day,” Geroux said to Asmussen following workouts on Louisiana Derby winner Gun Runner and Belmont Stakes winner Creator.

If Geroux can pick up those kinds of mounts in the afternoon, it could be a fun summer for the 30-year-old Frenchman, who will ride full time at Saratoga for the first time when this prestigious meet opens Friday.

DEL MAR, Calif. – An impressive allowance victory by the filly Entrechat on Sunday likely earned her a start in a stakes race next time out, trainer Neil Drysdale said.

“We could think about the Osunitas or something like that,” Drysdale said. The Osunitas, for nonwinners of a stakes race this year, is at 1 1/16 miles on turf Aug. 7.