Lady of Shamrock has won four turf stakes for 3-year-old fillies this year. Her last two starts were victories in Grade 1 races during the summer. Earlier this year, she was unbeaten in three turf stakes at Santa Anita.

All of that would seemingly make Lady of Shamrock a leading contender for Friday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita. But an interrupted preparation in recent months and a stellar field of fillies and mares in the Filly and Mare Turf will make Lady of Shamrock a bit of an outsider.

With Breeders’ Cup entries due Monday, a final decision had not yet been made by B. Wayne Hughes regarding which BC races his two Spendthrift Farm runners, Beholder and Jimmy Creed, will go in. However, it appears both will be running short, not long.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Gantry was the first horse to be declared a definite starter for this year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint after capturing the Win and You’re In Smile Sprint Handicap at Calder in early July. He’s been pretty much out of sight and out of mind ever since, returning home to Louisiana and making only one start in the nearly four months since he earned his all-expenses-paid trip to the Breeders’ Cup.

American Sugar rebounded from a rare double-digit defeat Friday night at Remington Park, when she picked up the second stakes win of her career in the $50,000 E.L. Gaylord Memorial for 2-year-old fillies. She bid four-wide for a head win over Cat Five’ O, while it was another 1 3/4 lengths back in third to pacesetter Kentucky Gem.

American Sugar ($9.20) came into the Gaylord off a 12-length defeat in the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Lassie at Arlington Park on Sept. 8. Prior to that race, she had won the $75,000 Prairie Gold Lassie at Prairie Meadows.

She’s Prado’s Idol is the most accomplished horse Garland Goins has owned in 15 years in racing and on Friday night at Delta Downs she added to her resume when she picked up her fifth stakes win of the year in the $100,000 Magnolia. She’s Prado’s Idol closed for a one-length win over Pretty Not, while it was another half-length back in third to Harlie’s Dreams.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Nine races restricted to 2-year-olds, including a pair of turf stakes, will bring to a close the Belmont Park fall meeting Sunday.

This is the third consecutive year the New York Racing Association has attempted to close the Belmont fall meet with a card devoted to all 2-year-olds. Last year, the program had to be scrapped because of a freak October snowstorm. This year, there is bad weather en route to New York, but the card is likely to get in before Hurricane Sandy arrives.

STICKNEY, Ill. – An outbreak of equine herpesvirus at Hawthorne Race Course has taken a turn for the worse, with horses in two barns other than the one housing the first herpesvirus cases either testing positive for the EHV-1 virus or showing symptoms of the disease.

The Illinois Department of Agriculture decided Friday not to put Hawthorne under a formal quarantine, but horses here cannot leave the grounds except for a medical emergency, and horses shipping in must remain at Hawthorne until the track is virus-free.

Trainer Todd Fincher could have the favorites in the two most important Thoroughbred stakes on the $2 million New Mexico Cup card at Zia Park on Sunday. He will send out Smash Dancer in search of his fourth win since July in the $180,000 Rocky Gulch Classic, while Rose’s Desert will defend her title in the $170,000 Peppers Pride Championship.

Quite a few dominoes – and walls – are falling at Churchill Downs in the wake of the parent company moving their corporate offices away from the flagship track. All that rearranging will be hard for ontrack fans to miss when the Louisville, Ky., track opens Sunday for a four-week fall meet.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Ryehill Dreamer vanished before adding any stability to the turf-mile division in California.

Sunday at Santa Anita, 15 months after his initial graded stakes victory in the Grade 2 American Handicap at Hollywood Park, Ryehill Dreamer resurfaces as the horse to beat in the $65,000 Lure Stakes.

Six older horses entered the one-mile grass race, and Ryehill Dreamer might be easier to support if there was a little less mystery surrounding his disappearance.