SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – One of Todd Pletcher’s older handicap stars, Palace Malice, was back on the work tab Monday, going a half-mile in 49.45 seconds over the Oklahoma training track.

Palace Malice has started just once since finishing sixth as the odds-on favorite in the 2014 Whitney. Pletcher cited “foot issues and other stuff” as the reason for Palace Malice being sidelined during the spring.

“We’re hoping to make a race at the meet with him,” said Pletcher on Monday. “He took a step towards that today with a good half-mile breeze.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Mark Casse is back at Saratoga this summer after a three year hiatus, and he’s brought a barn full of runners with him, led by Noble Bird, who won the Grade 1 Stephen Foster in his last start and is on target for the Grade 1 Whitney here on Aug. 8.

Noble Bird got his first real feel for the racetrack on Sunday, working five furlongs over a dull strip in 59.96 seconds before galloping out six furlongs in 1:13.06.

Lone Star Park experienced a decline in handle on its live races, but an increase in attendance during its 50-date meet that closed on Sunday. The season that started in April ranked as the wettest in the history of the Grand Prairie, Texas, track. Lone Star’s inaugural meet was in 1997.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Javier Castellano didn’t have to share top riding honors this summer at Belmont Park.

Castellano won two races on Sunday’s closing-day program and finished the meet with 56 victories, two more than Irad Ortiz Jr., for his third straight Belmont spring-summer crown. Last year, Ortiz won the final race of the meet, which enabled him to tie Castellano for leading rider honors.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The past few months have been difficult ones for trainer Art Sherman as California Chrome was stabled eight time zones away, pointing for races Sherman thought inappropriate, but he got the call he hoped for over the weekend when Duncan Taylor of Taylor Made Farm in Kentucky informed Sherman that California Chrome would be sent back to Sherman with the intent of racing him next year at age 5.

“That picked my head up,” Sherman said Sunday.

With the Haskell Invitational two weeks away, Mike Dempsey, Monmouth Park’s director of racing, and stakes coordinator Dan Dufford are beating the bushes to round up rivals to take on Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

It’s not an easy assignment.

Not only is American Pharoah the No. 1 ranked horse in the country, horsemen have other options that weekend besides the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell, which is a Win and You’re In for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Three potential starters for the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes on Aug. 1 worked on Saturday, including reigning Breeders’ Cup Juvenile champion Texas Red, who was the last horse to breeze over a slower-than-usual main track at Saratoga.

With exercise rider Emilia Harris aboard, Texas Red came out after 9:30 a.m. to work over a chewed-up racetrack, barely getting out of an open gallop early before finishing with some interest down the stretch. He was officially credited with a half-mile in 51.40.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Xoxo, Baruta, and Zipessa are bound for stakes later this summer after impressive wins in optional-claiming and allowance races Friday at Del Mar.

Baruta won a six-furlong allowance race for fillies and mares by 3 3/4 lengths, closing from last of six under jockey Flavien Prat. She was timed in 1:09.61, winning on dirt for the first time since the 2012 season in Brazil at the start of her career.

“It was a race we wanted to try, and it worked,” trainer Richard Mandella said.

STANTON, Del. – Lovely Maria came out of her fifth-place finish in the Delaware Oaks last week in good shape and is pointing to the Grade 1 Alabama at Saratoga, according to trainer Larry Jones.

The Delaware Oaks was the first start for Lovely Maria since her victory in the Kentucky Oaks 10 weeks earlier. She tired in the stretch of the Delaware Oaks as the 3-10 favorite and was beaten 6 1/4 lengths.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – The stakes-winning mare Final Trick has three foals racing on the Sunday program at Lone Star. All of the entrants are by the stallion My Golden Song, and all were bred in Texas. The card closes out the meet at Lone Star.

Final Trick’s first representative is Man of Stature, a 3-year-old who will vie for favoritism in the opener, a first-level allowance at a mile on turf. Cliff Berry has the mount for the partnership of Wayne Sanders and Larry Hirsh. Man of Stature is trained by Bret Calhoun.