FORT ERIE, Ontario – Dan Wills, 53, has been active as a trainer at both Fort Erie and Woodbine since 2000, and year after year, he continues to send out winners at both ovals.

Fort Erie has been his home base since he formally took out his trainer’s license. His partner in life and assistant trainer at the track, Jeanne Ryan, owns the majority of horses in his barn.

“I have been round horses all my life, and it all began in England when as a teenager I began working with Thoroughbreds and gained my apprentice jockey’s license at the age of 16,” Wills said.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – King David is a real racing rarity as a horse whose first start after a claim resulted in a Grade 1 victory. The colt pulled off that remarkable feat last fall in winning the Jamaica on the Belmont Park turf after being haltered for $35,000 just three weeks earlier.

The postscript wasn’t quite as storybook, however, because King David was forced to the shelf just a few months later with a knee chip. Fast-forward eight months, and the epilogue to his continuing tale begins Sunday on the closing-day program of the 12-day September meet at Churchill Downs.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The Sovereign Award for champion 3-year-old male could be decided on foreign soil next Saturday with both Five Iron and Up With the Birds slated to travel to Belmont Park for the Grade 1, $500,000 Jamaica at 1 1/8 miles on the turf.

Five Iron, a Kentucky-bred, will be seeking his fourth straight stakes win, all at 1 1/8 miles, in the Jamaica.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Reconnect rallied to register a major upset over multiple open stakes winner Sisterly Love here in the 1 1/16-mile Belle Mahone on Aug. 25.

On Sunday, Reconnect will travel the same distance but face ostensibly easier opposition in the $125,000 Classy ’n Smart Stakes for Ontario-sired fillies and mares.

“She just needs something to run at,” said Ashlee Brnjas, who trains the homebred 5-year-old for the Colebrook Farms of her father, John Brnjas. “That last race set up for her perfectly.”

Awesome Flower, under Alan Garcia, came from midpack to win the $100,000 HBPA on Thursday evening, the closing card of the Presque Isle Downs meet.

Trained by Mike Maker for Ken and Sarah Ramsey, Awesome Flower bided her time on the outside in fifth early. As the front-runners began to drop out of it in the stretch, the 4-year-old filly began to pick up horses and won by 3 1/2 lengths. Primed For Passion under Mario Pino was second, a nose in front of Unavailable in third. 

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ARCADIA, Calif. – There was a sense this summer at Del Mar that the leading 2-year-old males were a solid, but not spectacular, bunch, a theory that seemingly was confirmed in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, which Tamarando, a horse yet to be nominated to the Breeders’ Cup, won with a moderate Beyer Speed Figure of 78 in a race where the first six finishers were separated by two lengths after seven furlongs.

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ARCADIA, Calif. – Marketing Mix and Tiz Flirtatious were separated by only a head after a thrilling running of the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park in May. The rematch occurs in Saturday’s $250,000 Rodeo Drive Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/4 miles at Santa Anita.

School House, the second longest shot on the board at 17-1, rallied in deep stretch to get up by a neck in Thursday’s $50,250 With Anticipation Stakes at Delaware Park.

Ridden for the first time by Kendrick Carmouche, who came in from Philadelphia for the mount, the 6-year-old School House ($37.60) made up 2 1/2 lengths in the final furlong to prevail among five horses who were bunched at the finish of the 1 1/16-mile turf race.

Jockey Tyler Baze, suspended in July for failing a sobriety test in June at Hollywood Park, is in the midst of a 60-day residency rehabilitation program for alcoholism in Pasadena, Calif., and hopes to return to riding in October, according to his agent, Craig O’Bryan.

Baze was suspended 120 days by stewards Scott Chaney, Kim Sawyer, and Tom Ward after failing an alcohol test June 13. The suspension was retroactive to June 13 and ends Oct. 10.

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ARCADIA, Calif. – Moulin de Mougin was bred for Santa Anita’s unique hillside turf course. The Curlin filly is out of Cambiocorsa, who won four stakes on the hillside turf course in the 2000s.

Moulin de Mougin won her first start on the hillside last October in a maiden race. On Saturday, she makes her 2013 stakes debut in the $70,000 Unzip Me Stakes for 3-year-old fillies over about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course.