ELMONT, N.Y. – Wednesday morning was a quiet one at Belmont Park and a good time to get reacquainted with some old friends from the Kentucky Derby trail, as well as a couple of new faces in this year’s Belmont Stakes mix.

California Chrome and Tonalist were the first of the five potential Belmont starters to gallop over the main track between 6 and 7:15 a.m. Wednesday. They were followed by Ride On Curlin, Social Inclusion – whose Belmont status remains uncertain – and Wicked Strong. Those five are likely to be the top choices, if they all start, in the June 7 Belmont Stakes.

Ria Antonia has resumed training at Churchill but has “no definite race” on her agenda, said trainer Tom Amoss. Ria Antonia was badly beaten as the lone filly in the May 17 Preakness when making her first start for Amoss, her fourth trainer.

Meanwhile, Amoss figures to have the horse to beat Saturday with Delaunay in the Grade 3, $100,000 Aristides Stakes. Delaunay comes off a fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes on Kentucky Derby Day.

“He’s trained well since then, and we look forward to shortening him up to six furlongs,” said Amoss.

The so-called “match race” that resulted from four horses being scratched from the first race Monday at Churchill was not the first for Larry Collmus in more than 25 years of race-calling.

“I guess I’ve had maybe four or five,” said Collmus. “One of them was actually planned at Suffolk years ago. The others all scratched down like this one did.”

Theodore’s Cash won the Monday opener by three lengths over Stereo in Motion after the rest of the six-horse field was scratched.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Pat Byrne came within a single vote of earning the Eclipse Award for outstanding trainer in 1997, but that degree of success mostly has eluded him in the intervening years.

So no wonder Byrne has been smiling the last few days in the aftermath of a 3-year-old colt named Almost Famous breaking out with a 102 Beyer Speed Figure in an allowance romp Memorial Day weekend at Churchill Downs.

“I’m feeling really good about him,” said Byrne. “I’ve always said he’s a good colt. That kind of number is pretty hard to come by.”

In 2012 with I’ll Have Another preparing to run in the Belmont, Golden Gate Fields did a little guerrilla marketing by handing out cookies to promote the colt’s bid for the Triple Crown bid. The promotion was based on the story of the colt's name: Owner J. Paul Redham said "I'll have another" was his standard response when his wife asked him if he’d like more of the cookies she just baked.

Trainer Bill Delia was not a happy camper before the Grade 3 All American at Golden Gate Fields on Monday when Minister Vivendi, who would run last as the longest shot on the board, arrived in the paddock without his usual nasal strip. As the horses went on the track for the post parade, Delia was on the phone with the stewards vociferously voicing his displeasure.

“This horse is owned by Dana Rocheford and means the world to her,” Delia said after the race. “She bought the nasal strips wanting to put them on him, and we’ve been using them all along.

Impending back surgery kept trainer Dave Kassen from witnessing firsthand Nikki’s Sandcastle’s win Saturday in the Grade 3 Hanshin Cup, but Kassen watched with pleasure from Kentucky as the 7-year-old Nikki’s Sandcastle scored his second graded stakes victory.

The New York-bred Marriedtothemusic has been sensational on dirt, running first or second in 10 of 11 career starts, including a victory in the Affirmed Stakes last time out. But he might be about to change surfaces.

Since there was no race on this weekend’s New York Showcase card that fit Marriedtothemusic, trainer Linda Rice worked him on turf Monday, and he seemed to relish it, going five furlongs in 1:01 and moving over the ground well. He is now a candidate for the Grade 3, $300,000 Jaipur Stakes, run at six furlongs on turf on the June 7 Belmont Stakes card.

While the connections of Intense Holiday announced the retirement of that stakes-winning 3-year-old on Tuesday due to a fractured foreleg, they may have already found his replacement for some of the summer’s important stakes in that division.

Tiz Dark, who, like Intense Holiday, is owned by Starlight Stable, won a 1 1/16-mile maiden race by 6 3/4 lengths Sunday at Belmont, just four hours after Intense Holiday was injured during a workout.

ELMONT, N.Y. – It should be worth the wait.

Though traditionalists were upset with the New York Racing Association’s decision to move the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap from Memorial Day to the June 7 Belmont Stakes card, the race is expected to draw a strong – and potentially large – field.