ARCADIA, Calif. – Beholder missed the finish of the racing season, but she will not miss 2016. The two-time champion, unbeaten in 2015, will return to Santa Anita in mid-January to prepare for a 6-year-old campaign that ideally will conclude in the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

Beholder scratched from the 2015 BC Classic at Keeneland after she bled in a routine gallop days before. She currently is stabled at Peacefield Farm in Temecula, 70 miles southeast of Santa Anita.

Trainer Richard Mandella is in no rush to crank her up.

NEW ORLEANS – Chocolate Ride, the top turf horse in trainer Brad Cox’s barn, breezed a half-mile in 50 seconds Dec. 19 and is progressing nicely toward the Grade 3 Col. E.R. Bradley Handicap on Jan. 16, Cox said.

Chocolate Ride, who won the Grade 2 Mervin H. Muniz Memorial in March at Fair Grounds, began this current local season with an optional-claiming victory Nov. 27. He was racing for the first time since finishing eighth in the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic on May 2 at Churchill Downs. After that race, he was sidelined with hock issues.

NEW ORLEANS – By winning the Tiffany Lass Stakes on Dec. 19, Cash Control gave her dam, the Mt. Livermore mare Hidden Assets, her fourth stakes winner.

Cash Control, a 4-year-old Pioneerof the Nile filly trained by Brad Cox for owners Richard and Bertram Klein, joined Due Date, Country Day, and Good Deed as stakes winners produced by Hidden Assets. The mare, now 18, earned $298,313 in 13 starts for the Klein family and won five races, including the Grade 3 Shirley Jones Handicap in 2001 at Gulfstream Park.

NEW ORLEANS – He’s riding with more confidence at this Fair Grounds meet. He’s demonstrating patience. And he’s riding better horses.

In a variety of ways, Mitchell Murrill, who made his Fair Grounds debut last season as an apprentice, is a more polished jockey in his first local season as a journeyman. The results certainly are backing up the point.

Through Monday’s races, Murrill had 15 victories from 115 mounts and was tied for fourth in the jockeys’ standings. From 324 mounts last season, he won 23 races and finished 12th in the standings.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The winter racing season begins Saturday with weather forecast to be brisk. As for the setting, the visual appeal of Santa Anita is the same as always – historic and inviting.

It is the track where American Pharoah trained and Zenyatta won two Breeders’ Cup races, including one that was “un-be-liev-able.” Who knows? Perhaps a new Santa Anita star will emerge this season under the idyllic backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Yes, the track still looks the same. But my, how the sound will change.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Financial Modeling, who earned a 104 Beyer Speed Figure for his victory in last Saturday’s $100,000 Queens County Stakes, will remain in New York for the time being, trainer Chad Brown said Tuesday.

Possible spots for Financial Modeling here include the Jazil, at a mile and 70 yards on Jan. 16, and the Stymie, at 1 1/8 miles on March 13.

“Right now, the horse is doing very well where he is,” Brown said. “I don’t have any plans to move him.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Leah Gyarmati sent out a pair of 2-year-old winners in a seven-day span earlier this month over the inner track and now has the task of deciding whether to try them in stakes or wait for the often-hard-to-find allowance race.

On Dec. 13, In Equality won a 1 1/16-mile maiden race by a neck for Gyarmati, earning a 73 Beyer Speed Figure. A son of Quality Road, In Equality had lost his first two starts, both on turf.

In Equality is nominated to the Grade 3, $200,000 Jerome Stakes here Jan. 2 and could run there “if he’s doing well,” Gyarmati said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – In an attempt to stimulate early activity in its 2-year-old program, the New York Racing Association plans to offer $100,000 purses for six maiden juvenile races – three for females and three for males – in April and May. The usual purse for a maiden race at that time of year is $75,000.

The three races in each division are designed to produce runners for the Astoria and Tremont stakes on June 9 and 10 at Belmont Park. The maiden races will be known as the Astoria Trial A, B, and C and the Tremont Trial A, B, and C.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Todd Pletcher might give Sudden Surprise an opportunity to stretch out in distance at some point, but he’s just not sure that will happen in Saturday’s $100,000 Damon Runyon Stakes at Aqueduct.

Pletcher entered both Sudden Surprise, a three-time stakes-winning sprinter, and Spooked Out, a maiden winner from three starts, in both the Damon Runyon at a mile and 70 yards and Sunday’s $150,000 Great White Way Division of the New York Stallion Stakes at six furlongs.

Nyquist and Songbird – both undefeated, both Breeders’ Cup winners, and both undoubtedly to be named Eclipse Award winners – are the marquee names among the 3-year-olds of 2016 based this winter at Santa Anita, the track where three of the last four Kentucky Derby winners have trained during winter months.