DEL MAR, Calif. – With a victory on a synthetic surface on his résumé courtesy of his win in the Bob Hope Stakes for 2-year-olds at Del Mar on Saturday, No Problem may be heading north to Golden Gate Fields for his next start. That could come in the $75,000 Gold Rush Stakes on Dec. 6, according to his trainer, Michael McCarthy.

“That race could fit him well, at a flat mile,” McCarthy said on Sunday. “But we’ll wait and see how he comes out of this race. So far, he looks to have come out of it well.”

DEL MAR, Calif. - The big pick six carryovers over the weekend continued a surge in handle for Del Mar through the first two weeks of the meet.

On Sunday, with $599,483 already in the kitty courtesy of a three-day carryover, bettors poured another $2,552,818 into the pick six pool. That contributed to an overall handle for the day of $11,932,117. On the comparable Sunday at Hollywood Park last year (Nov. 17) the handle was $8.5 million. The handle at Santa Anita on Oct. 26, the Sunday prior to the Breeders’ Cup, was $10.2 million.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Del Mar was informed over the weekend of the death in August of former jockey Pete Moreno, who was the leading rider here in 1960 and won the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in 1961.

Moreno won 1,650 races during a 16-year riding career. After he finished riding, Moreno was a longtime racing official on this circuit.
His survivors include his wife, Jan.

Moreno, 87 at the time of his death while living in Hemet, Calif., was the older brother of jockey Henry Moreno, who won the 1953 Kentucky Derby on Dark Star.

MIAMI – Nominations have been released for the only two graded stakes of the inaugural Gulfstream Park West meeting, the Grade 3 Tropical Turf and its filly counterpart, the My Charmer Handicap, both to be decided on grass here next Saturday.

Far Right could be a sleeper in the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot next Saturday. He will come into the 1 1/16-mile race off a troubled third-place finish in the Street Sense Stakes at Churchill Downs. Conquest Tsunami won that race and likely will vie for favoritism in the Jackpot, which will anchor a card of eight stakes worth $2.3 million in total.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – While trainer Todd Pletcher has not finalized his lineup for the six stakes scheduled here for Thanksgiving weekend, one horse certain not to participate in the Grade 2 Remsen is Blofeld.

Blofeld, who is 3 for 3, including Grade 2 victories in the Futurity Stakes and Nashua Stakes, will be pointed to a 3-year-old campaign.

“He came a long way in a short period of time,” said Pletcher. “We just decided to give him a break sooner than later. We’ll get him down to Florida in a month or so and go from there.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Following his 9 1/2-length maiden win Sept. 26 at Belmont, Liam’s Map seemed a logical contender for the Grade 3 Discovery at Aqueduct on Nov. 1.

But his connections, owners Teresa and Vincent Viola and trainer Todd Pletcher, opted for the more conservative route. Instead, Liam’s Map figures to be a short-priced favorite in a first-level allowance race Sunday at Aqueduct that goes as race 6.

The race is run as a one-turn mile, the same configuration as his maiden win, in which he ran a mile in 1:34.72 and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 98.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Palace, a multiple Grade 1-winning sprinter in 2014 who finished sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, may not be done for the year.
Trainer Linda Rice said Friday she would work Palace over the weekend to determine whether or not to point him toward either the Grade 3 Fall Highweight Handicap on Thanksgiving Day at Aqueduct or perhaps the Grade 1 Cigar Mile two days later.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The biggest race in the United States is the Kentucky Derby. The biggest race in Canada is the Queen’s Plate. So, if the winners of those two races met at Del Mar, that certainly would make it the biggest race this track has had in a long time.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Demonica was highly regarded when she first came to trainer John Sadler’s barn last year at age 2, but in her first four starts on dirt and Polytrack, she finished in the money just once.

She was moved to turf last month at Santa Anita, and that appears to have turned her career around. After beating maidens that day, she came back Thursday and won a first-level optional claimer. Both her victories came against California-breds.