Vlahos, making his first start since being purchased following a blazing career debut that earned a 98 Beyer Speed Figure, finished a gallant third on Kentucky Derby Day after contesting a strong pace in the Pat Day Mile. But he was not the fastest 3-year-old one-turn dirt horse of the day for trainer Doug O’Neill.

In Saturday’s 13th race, following the Derby, Raging Torrent went wire to wire in a first-level allowance, winning by more than eight lengths, his seven-furlong time of 1:21.13 good for a 104 Beyer.

The bad news is Xigera was all but eased making her first start as a 4-year-old in the Grade 1 La Troienne on May 3 at Churchill. The good news is her connections found nothing wrong with the filly.

Purses at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton this summer will be lower than the corresponding meeting in 2023 by a range of 3.8 to 8.6 percent, but higher than the current meeting at Golden Gate Fields.

Overnight purses have been cut by $1,000 per race, affecting some categories more significantly than others. A first-condition allowance race will be worth $26,000, down from $27,000 last summer, a decline of 3.8 percent. The same race at Golden Gate Fields has a purse of $23,500.

Linda’s Gift, the winner of three consecutive stakes for fillies and mares in Southern California since late November, is a glaring absentee from Saturday’s $100,000 Santa Barbara Stakes at Santa Anita.

It will not be long before the 5-year-old Linda’s Gift is racing again. Trainer Richard Mandella said on Thursday that Linda’s Gift is a candidate for the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes, a $300,000 turf race for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on May 27.

Total handle during the recently concluded meet at Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar, Fla., was up 2.4 percent, according to the track, despite wet weather and a communications outage on the track’s biggest day of racing.

Total handle for the 90-day meet was $361.5 million, the track said, with average daily handle of $4.02 million.

Golden Gate Fields will run a seven-race program on Friday after failing to draw sufficient entries on two Fridays in the last month.

Racing was not held on April 19 and May 3 because of a lack of race-ready horses. The track’s horse population has decreased in recent months in advance of the permanent closure of Golden Gate Fields on June 9.

Friday’s program drew 43 entrants.

Jockey Joe Talamo, who has won 2,334 races in his career through Tuesday, will resume riding in Southern California on a full-time basis later this month, according to his agent, Marty McGee.

Talamo, 34, will be represented by agent Rene Amescua in California. Talamo plans to ride the final weeks of the current Santa Anita meeting, which ends on June 16 before focusing on the Del Mar summer meeting, which runs from July to 20 to Sept. 8.

In his last summer of riding at Del Mar in 2019, Talamo finished fourth in the standings with 23 wins.