NEW ORLEANS – On paper, it looked like only something crazy could get String King beat Saturday in the Louisiana Champions Day Turf, a race String King had won three times before and in which he was the 4-5 post-time favorite. The starting gate clanged and opened, horses and riders jousted for early position, and before a quarter-mile had been run, something crazy happened.

NEW ORLEANS – The Pickett Factor won four of his first five starts, including the $100,000 Prelude Stakes, yet his best racing still might be in front of him. After finishing fourth in the Super Derby, The Pickett Factor has run perhaps the two best races of his life, easy wins in the Gold Cup at Delta Downs last month and in the Champions Day Classic on Saturday. He backed up his 99 Beyer Speed Figure at Delta with a 96 on Saturday and handed Mobile Bay, the Super Derby winner, a 5 1/4-length defeat.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Don’t Be So Salty, who won the Display Stakes at Woodbine on Nov. 29, is among trainer Gary Contessa’s 16-horse string at the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida for the winter. But Don’t Be So Salty will be targeting Turfway Park’s series for 3-year-olds, the trainer said, because of the gelding’s 2-for-2 record over synthetic surfaces.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The last time Turco Bravo raced over Aqueduct’s inner track, he won the $98,000 Stymie Stakes as the 9-1 longest shot in a five-horse field. It’s his only win in nine starts in 2015.

On Saturday, Turco Bravo will return to Aqueduct’s inner track and likely be a longshot again in the $100,000 Queens County Stakes at 1 1/8 miles.

STICKNEY, Ill. – Dom the Bomb won the Jim Edgar Illinois Futurity last December at Hawthorne by 5 1/4 lengths with a Beyer Speed Figure of 82. On Saturday, his half-brother, Richie the Bull, won the Jim Edgar Illinois Futurity by 9 1/4 lengths with a Beyer of 80. But Richie the Bull’s connections, trainer Larry Rivelli and owners Richard Ravin and V-Leaf Stables, surely hope the two horses’ story lines diverge from here on out.

Trainer Jinks Fires on Monday morning was heading home to Oaklawn Park with Discreetness, one of his candidates for the track’s stakes series for 3-year-olds. The pair was traveling from Remington Park, where Discreetness captured the $250,000 Springboard Mile on the final card of the meet Sunday.

“I’m driving a pickup, and he’s riding behind,” Fires said. “He’s a backseat driver!”

Jockey Tyler Gaffalione was involved in a scary-looking spill in a race last week, but fortunately for the recently turned journeyman, Gaffalione escaped with only minor bruising to his knee, missed only one day of riding, and bounced back with a bang by winning four races over the weekend, including Saturday’s Grade 3 Rampart with Cali Star for trainer Marty Wolfson.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado will be sidelined at least six to eight weeks after breaking six ribs in a riding mishap Sunday at Gulfstream Park. The injuries will prevent Prado, 48, from keeping his regular seat aboard Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Runhappy when the horse makes his final 3-year-old start Dec. 26 in the Grade 1 Malibu at Santa Anita. Trainer Laura Wohlers said Monday that Gary Stevens will have the mount.

CYPRESS, Calif. – The new names are I’malreadythere and Seattle Serenade, a stakes-placed runner and a stylish winner from a stable known for producing many such horses.

I’malreadythere, a 2-year-old gelding, has been second or third in three consecutive stakes since early September. Seattle Serenade is unbeaten in two starts and is as promising a late-season 3-year-old as has been seen in Southern California in recent seasons.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Richies Sweetheart, who won the $200,000 Turf Amazon Handicap at Parx Racing in September, tuned up for this Saturday’s $100,000 Lightning City Stakes by breezing an easy five furlongs in 1:04 here last Wednesday. The Lightning City is for fillies and mares ages 3 and up and covers five furlongs on turf.

“She should be real tough in there,” said trainer and co-owner Larry Rivelli, adding that he might give the 4-year-old Richies Sweetheart a short blowout a few days prior to the race.