Veteran California trainer Hector Palma has been provisionally suspended by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit after one of his starters at Del Mar in late July tested positive for methamphetamine, according to the organization’s website.

The suspension was announced late last week and resulted in the scratch of Geezer from Sunday’s sixth race.

The positive was found in a post-race test taken from Baladi, the fourth-place finisher in a $32,000 claimer on July 30. Baladi, a 4-year-old gelding, has been suspended from racing by HIWU.

In the last decade, the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap has been an annual gathering of many of trainer Phil D’Amato’s leading turf marathoners – and a successful one.

D’Amato has won the race seven times since 2014, including five of the last six runnings. In Saturday’s $300,000 running, D’Amato again has a deep team with three expected runners in Cash Equity, Cathkin Peak, and Gold Phoenix, who won the race in 2022.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Ireland-based Bolshoi Ballet has recorded his last two victories in the U.S, albeit two years apart. He is expected to make another cross-Atlantic trip next month for the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, trainer Aidan O’Brien said Monday.

Bolshoi Ballet was a dominant 4 1/2-length winner of Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Sword Dancer Stakes, which earned him an automatic berth into the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 4.

O’Brien said the Breeders’ Cup is the goal and the Joe Hirsch will be the way to get him there.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Clapton has joined a new band, er barn.

Clapton, winner of the Grade 3 Ghostzapper Stakes at Gulfstream Park in April and runner-up in the Grade 2 Suburban at Belmont Park last month, was purchased privately by Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Alnuami’s RRR Racing from Arindel Farm. He has been turned over to trainer Chad Summers, who will start him in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga.

It’s been nowhere but up for Kentucky Downs over the past decade. The first track in Kentucky to install historical horse racing machines, in 2011, Kentucky Downs has gone from being a border-town curiosity to a powerhouse on the Kentucky racing circuit. This year, an estimated $2 billion will be bet at its two casinos near the Tennessee border. From that, approximately $15 million will be sent into the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, while Kentucky Downs itself will retain nearly $150 million in net commissions.