The 20-year-old jockey Didiel Osorio is riding high at Ellis. Entering Friday’s races, he is tied with the highly regarded apprentice Juan Saez with five winners atop the Ellis Park jockey standings. That puts him ahead of such well-established jockeys as Leandro Goncalves, Jesus Castanon, Miguel Mena, Brian Hernandez Jr., and Calvin Borel.

A native of Panama, where he attended the jockey school there named in honor of Laffit Pincay Jr., Osorio began his apprenticeship in Panama before coming to America as a journeyman rider and as a relative unknown.

A cowboy is expected on the track Saturday at Ellis Park – specifically the 71-year-old jockey R.A. “Cowboy” Jones.

Jones, virtually a yearly fixture at Ellis Park since he began riding there in 1959, is named aboard the first-time starter Texas Holdem in the fifth race Saturday – which would mark his first ride since Aug. 31, when he was fifth aboard Tuffer in a $5,000 claiming race at Ellis Park.

AUBURN, Wash. – Del Rio Harbor tops the list of eight horses nominated for Sunday’s $50,000 Seattle Slew Handicap at Emerald Downs. The four-time stakes winner is certain to attract heavy interest in the betting, yet to prevail in the 1 1/16-mile Seattle Slew, he’ll have to overcome a daunting trend: The past nine favorites have tasted defeat in the meeting’s second two-turn stakes for 3-year-olds.

CYPRESS, Calif. - Doinghardtimeagain, a four-time stakes winner who was last of five in the Desert Stormer Stakes at Santa Anita last month, will start in Saturday’s $200,000 Great Lady M. Stakes at Los Alamitos, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said.

The Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes is run over 6 1/2 furlongs and is the top race for females at the track’s two-week summer meeting for Thoroughbreds.

CYPRESS, Calif. – Shared Belief, the undefeated champion 2-year-old male of 2013, will be based at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California in the buildup to an expected start in the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 24.

The winner of the $500,000 Los Alamitos Derby last Saturday, Shared Belief was shipped to Golden Gate Fields on Monday, according to trainer Jerry Hollendorfer. For much of this year, Shared Belief has trained on the Tapeta Footings synthetic surface at Golden Gate Fields, which Hollendorfer said has been kind to the gelding’s feet.

Typically kept open year-round, Aqueduct’s backstretch will close for seven weeks this summer, something that could save the New York Racing Association $900,000 to $1 million, according to Martin Panza, NYRA’s senior director of racing operations.

The track will close for training Tuesday, and the barn will close July 17. The backstretch will reopen Sept. 2, with the track open for training starting Sept. 3.

Panza said there are about 420 horses at Aqueduct, and 220 of them go to Saratoga, leaving just 200 at Aqueduct. Those horses will move to Belmont Park.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Grandeur will wrap up his North American campaign when he faces six rivals in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Bowling Green Handicap, the final graded event of the Belmont spring-summer meet.

Grandeur, based in England with Jeremy Noseda, came to New York in the spring and finished third in the Grade 1 Man o’ War on May 11 and fourth the Grade 1 Manhattan on June 7. In the Manhattan, Grandeur was 17 lengths off a modest pace under Gary Stevens and came with a late run to get beat 2 1/4 lengths, much to the chagrin of his connections.

The Delaware Racing Commission is investigating a possible fight between jockeys Trevor McCarthy and Angel Serpa following the fifth race at Delaware Park last Saturday. A stewards’ hearing is scheduled for Thursday morning.

B.J. Wright, a Kentucky native who owned stakes-winning Thoroughbreds in Southern California in recent years, died early Tuesday of cancer, according to his trainer, Mike Pender.

Wright was 76, and had been battling illness in the last year.

Wright campaigned such prominent runners as Jeranimo, a millionaire and eight-time stakes winner, and Ultimate Eagle, who won three stakes, including the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby in 2011. Jeranimo won the Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes at Santa Anita earlier this year.

OPELOUSAS, La. – All three of last Saturday’s stakes winners at Evangeline Downs emerged in good order and likely are headed upstate to Louisiana Downs for Louisiana Cup Day on Aug. 2. There is a small chance, however, that one might be headed out of state instead.