There are a handful of speed horses in Saturday night’s $100,000 Big Drama for 3-year-olds at Delta Downs, and if they mix it up, they could set the table for Mr. Bandini’s Band. He will be seeking his first stakes win in the seven-furlong race to be run around two turns and enters off a career effort.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – In trying to split up his plethora of young horses, it was an easy decision for trainer Todd Pletcher to send Princess of Sylmar to Penn National, where she could meet softer company while earning added money for being a Pennsylvania-bred.

After winning a maiden race by 19 lengths in her second start, it was just as easy a decision for Pletcher to return Princess of Sylmar to New York to run for richer purses, even if it meant facing tougher competition.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – As they proved last year with Alpha, owner Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum and trainer Kiaran McLaughlin have no problem using the New York road to the Triple Crown for a promising 3-year-old.

So it comes as little surprise that duo will be represented by the royally bred Long River when New York’s road to the 2013 Triple Crown kicks off with Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Jerome Stakes at Aqueduct.

PHOENIX – By virtue of her romping win in the Phoenix Stakes at Turf Paradise on Dec. 19, E Z Kitty could lay claim to the title as the best filly or mare on the grounds. She looks to dispel any doubts in Saturday’s $35,000 Kachina Handicap. The mile main-track event for fillies and mares drew a field of seven.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Great Attack is slated to make his first start since finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on Saturday when he tops a field of nine in the $75,000 Tampa Turf Dash at five furlongs.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Ultimate Eagle had a diverse range of results in the early months of 2012 at Santa Anita. He won the Grade 2 Strub Stakes by 7 1/2 lengths Feb. 4, but was 10th as the 2-1 favorite in the Santa Anita Handicap on March 2.

The goal this winter is to avoid such variations.

A 5-year-old, Ultimate Eagle starts in the $150,000 San Pasqual Handicap at Santa Anita on Saturday, a race that trainer Mike Pender and owner B.J. Wright plan to use as a prep for the $750,000 Santa Anita Handicap on March 2.

Whatever gets you there . . .

Kelly Breen and his clients, George and Lori Hall, are thinking outside the box when it comes to possibly making the Kentucky Derby with one of their better 3-year-olds, a dark bay colt named Bye Bye Bernie. They may be taking the Turfway Park route.

“He’s shown he likes Polytrack, so if he runs well Saturday, he’ll stay there another four weeks and we’ll just play it race-by-race from there,” Breen said this week while en route to New York from his main winter base in south Florida. “Turfway has a nice progression of races through the winter.”

STICKNEY, Ill. – All-sources average daily handle at Hawthorne Race Course declined 7 percent from 2011 during a fall-winter meet that ended Dec. 30, but things could have been worse. This Hawthorne season will long be remembered for the equine herpesvirus outbreak that began infecting horses in mid-October and led to talk of halting the race meet in midseason.

Average daily handle on race cards in 2012 at Penn National Race Course jumped 20.6 percent compared to the same figure during 2011, according to figures released by the track Thursday.

Track officials cited a change in schedule, a slight increase in average field size, and an effort to schedule post times to avoid conflicts with other tracks for the jump. In 2012, Penn National raced on a Wednesday-through-Saturday schedule for most of the year, compared to a schedule in 2011 of running on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

New Orleans is a nice place to spend the winter with a Louisiana-bred stakes-level turf horse: This is just Week 6 of the Fair Grounds race meet, and Saturday’s feature, the $60,000 Dixie Poker Ace, already is the third turf stakes offered for older Louisiana-breds.