ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita’s new racetrack has been well received by trainers since it was installed in late summer. The track has been used for training since early September and will be tested in racing for the first time Sept. 26 on the opening-day program.

“So far, so good,” said trainer Jim Cassidy, president of the California Thoroughbred Trainers Association. “I’ve worked 25, and they’ve come back good.”

Trainer Phil D’Amato described the surface as “very good.” He plans to enter possibly 15 horses for the first three days of the meeting, Sept. 26-28.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Marcus Vitali completed a big week when Midnight Cello splashed to an easy victory in a Thursday allowance race, defeating a stakes-quality group that included Palatine Hill and Sr. Quisqueyano. Five days earlier, Vitali sent out his Grade 1 winner Lochte to win The Vid Stakes.

Vitali also had won an allowance race with another of his graded stakes winners, Valid, the previous Thursday.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Shared Belief, considered the early favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 1, will be part of a small field for his Santa Anita debut in the $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes on Sept. 27.

The Grade 1 race will not include Clubhouse Ride, who won the Grade 2 Californian Stakes on May 31. Clubhouse Ride emerged from a seventh-place finish in the $200,000 Los Alamitos Mile on Sept. 6 with a back injury, trainer Craig Lewis said.

“He had a minor setback – a back issue,” Lewis said. “He’s turned out.”

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Hall of Fame rider Edgar Prado will return to south Florida and ride on a regular basis beginning Sunday. Prado is named on five mounts on Sunday’s Gulfstream program, including a pair for trainer Todd Pletcher, who last week shipped the first of his many horses expected here for the winter to Palm Beach Downs.

Bob Klesaris, the agent for both Prado and Jose Valdivia Jr. at Gulfstream, said Prado will ride full time at Gulfstream, with some weekend trips to New York and Kentucky.

Moonshine Mullin is through racing for the year and will return to action at Oaklawn Park next winter, said trainer Randy Morse.

Moonshine Mullin, owned by Randy Patterson, earned an expenses-paid berth to the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic by winning the Grade 1 Stephen Foster here in June, but what Morse termed “a minor issue” precluded the 6-year-old horse from racing again in 2014.

Silver Max was among the handful of workers over the Keeneland turf course Thursday as activity continued to build toward a 17-day fall meet that begins Oct. 3 at the Lexington, Ky., track. He was timed in 1:01.40 for five furlongs.

Silver Max will be rematched with Wise Dan in the first $1 million race in Keeneland history, the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile on Oct. 4. Silver Max won the Shadwell last fall over Polytrack when the race was rained off turf and remains the only horse to defeat Wise Dan in the last 14 starts for the reigning two-time Horse of the Year.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Garry Simms has won with five of his last eight starters at Churchill Downs and elsewhere, but he hasn’t been around to go to the winner’s circle. He has the future to consider.

Simms has been making a conscious effort to conserve his precious energy to shop at the Keeneland yearling sale.

“I’ve bought five of them for a little more than a half-million dollars,” Simms, a Churchill-based trainer since 1992, said Thursday evening.

CYPRESS, Calif. – Game On Dude, a top older horse in recent years and the only horse to win three runnings of the Santa Anita Handicap, was retired Thursday after three consecutive losses, trainer Bob Baffert said.

Game On Dude won 16 of 34 starts and earned $6,498,893, including eight Grade 1 races from 2011 to earlier this year.

Little Alexis gave a good account of herself when she went from a listed stakes win to a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Test last month at Saratoga. Trainer Carlo Vaccarezza said he believes she will again be competitive when Little Alexis makes her first start around two turns in the Grade 1, $1 million Cotillion Stakes going 1 1/16 miles Saturday at Parx.

When told that California Chrome was going to run in the Pennsylvania Derby, Willie Delgado grew very excited because it meant another chance to visit family and friends on the East Coast.