The two-time stakes winner Forbidden Kingdom, unraced since May, is expected to make his second career turf start in the Grade 2 Joe Hernandez Stakes on the hillside course at Santa Anita on Dec. 30.

Trained by Richard Mandella, Forbidden Kingdom has won 3 of 11 starts and earned $559,500 in a career plagued by setbacks. As a 2-year-old, he finished third on turf in the five-furlong Speakeasy Stakes at Santa Anita.

“I may try him in the Hernandez,” Mandella said on Friday a few hours after Forbidden Kingdom worked five furlongs in 1:02 at Santa Anita.

There are 47 scheduled days of racing at Aqueduct’s upcoming winter meet -- two more than the previous winter -- as the New York Racing Association released part of its 2024 racing calendar on Friday.

The winter meet will run from Jan. 1-March 30, with the New Year’s Day program capping a five-day week beginning Dec. 28. From Jan. 4-21, racing will be conducted four days a week (Thursdays through Sundays). From Jan. 26-March 3, racing will be conducted three days a week (Fridays through Sundays), though a Presidents’ Day Monday card will be held on Feb. 19.

Los Alamitos will seed the $2 pick six on Saturday and on Dec. 16 with $10,000, provided the bet does not have a carryover from the preceding day.

The promotion has been in place in recent years for the track’s evening meeting of Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds.

Los Alamitos offers a conventional $2 pick six.

Interest in the pick six has grown in Southern California in recent months after Santa Anita and Del Mar abandoned a 20-cent Rainbow pick six in which the entire pool was paid to a single winning ticket or on a day with a mandatory payout.

Luis Contreras, currently tied for 10th in the standings at Woodbine Racecourse near Toronto, will spend the winter at Santa Anita, according to his California agent Mike Ciani.

Contreras, 37, is expected to begin riding in California on Dec. 26, opening day of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.

Contreras rode at Santa Anita last winter for the first time since the 2016-2017 season. He won 14 races from 99 mounts. His best result in four mounts in stakes was a third aboard Stella Noir in the Desert Stormer Stakes, a sprint for fillies and mares.

Alexander Chavez, the runaway leading rider at the current Golden Gate Fields autumn meeting, has been suspended eight racing days beginning on Friday for two recent riding infractions for careless riding.

Chavez was suspended three days – Friday through Sunday – for his ride on Speed Grazy on Nov. 26. Speed Grazy was demoted from first to third for causing interference in the stretch.

Five riders who have combined to win 14,508 races through Tuesday have been nominated for the 2024 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award presented by Santa Anita, the track announced on Wednesday.

Junior Alvarado (who has won 2,082 races), Alex Birzer (3,826), Julien Leparoux (2,956), Edwin Maldonado (1,532), and Rodney Prescott (4,112) have been selected as finalists.

Led by the stakes winners Chatalas and Nothing Like You, the Grade 2 Starlet Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Los Alamitos on Saturday is projected to have a small field.

The $200,000 Starlet Stakes is run at 1 1/16 miles and is the final graded stakes of the year for the division in Southern California.

Chatalas won the Grade 2 Chandelier Stakes at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita on Oct. 7, but was only ninth of 12 in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita on Nov. 3 for trainer Mark Glatt.