The New Orleans area got between 1 1/2 and two inches of rain Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, but to the great surprise of many, Fair Grounds was able to conduct turf racing on opening day Thursday. The course started out yielding but was upgraded to good and didn’t seem especially wet, laboring, or difficult to handle.

“It’s a little soft because of the rain, but it’s in great shape,” said jockey Florent Geroux, who won an opening-day grass race.

Speechify, who miraculously escaped serious injury when he fell during the Grade 3 Woodford Stakes at Keeneland on Oct. 3, returns in Sunday’s $50,000 feature at Gulfstream Park West, to be decided under open allowance conditions at five furlongs on turf. The race attracted a field of 10 that also includes the stakes-caliber New York-bred Notacatbutallama from the barn of trainer Todd Pletcher.

MIAMI – Nominations have been released for the nine Claiming Crown races that will highlight opening day of the 2015-16 Gulfstream Park championship meet on Dec. 5.

This will mark the 17th edition of the popular series, which rewards and pays homage to the horses who are the foundation of racing programs at racetracks throughout the country year-round, and the fourth consecutive year the Claiming Crown has been held at Gulfstream Park.

Calamity Kate was making her way to New Mexico on Friday for the $300,000 Zia Park Oaks. The 1 1/16-mile race is the centerpiece of the track’s third annual Land of Enchantment program on Wednesday. The card of eight stakes worth a total of $1.28 million also includes the $200,000 Zia Park Derby and the $150,000 Distance Championship.

Texas Red, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita in 2014, is undergoing preliminary training at WinStar Farm in Kentucky, trainer Keith Desormeaux said.

Texas Red is expected to join Desormeaux’s stable at Santa Anita next month to prepare for a 2016 campaign. Texas Red won the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 1 and was fifth in the Travers Stakes there Aug. 29 in his most recent start.

Stellar Wind, a game second to Stopchargingmaria in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland on Oct. 30, is nearing a return to training after a brief rest, owner Kosta Hronis said on Friday.

Trained by John Sadler, Stellar Wind has remained at Santa Anita during her break and will be pointed for the major stakes at that track’s winter-spring meeting.

“In mid-December, we’ll start her up,” Hronis said.

The fawn silks with brown sleeves of Darby Dan Farm have been worn by Kentucky Derby winners Proud Clarion (1967) and Chateaugay (1963). Jorge Velasquez was sporting a set when he won the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Classic on Proud Truth. But John Phillips, the head of Darby Dan, estimates they have not made an appearance in about 15 years.

That will change in the sixth race at Aqueduct on Sunday when Manitoulin makes his career debut for Darby Dan Farm LLC and trainer Jimmy Toner.

Carlos Quentin, a former Major League Baseball All-Star who played locally for the San Diego Padres, is part of the ownership group of Tattenham, who runs in race 7 on Sunday at Del Mar, a second-level optional $62,500 claimer at one mile on turf in which he’s in for the claiming tag.

Tattenham will be seeking his third straight win. He won his last two starts at Belmont Park, both in claiming races, and was taken out of both races.

Alert Bay will seek his fourth straight victory next Friday in the Grade 2, $250,000 Seabiscuit Handicap at Del Mar, a 1 1/16-mile grass race for older horses that was known as the Citation when it was run at Hollywood Park.

Alert Bay, trained by Blaine Wright, scored the biggest win of his current streak in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita in September.

Lottie ran too good to lose in her debut at Keeneland, earning a Beyer Speed Figure that would win most maiden races, and she figures to be a strong favorite in Sunday’s final race at Del Mar, a one-mile grass race for 2-year-old maiden fillies.

Lottie, by Arch, finished furiously and wound up in a dead heat for third in her debut Oct. 8. She got an 84 Beyer, more than 20 points higher than anyone else in this race has earned.