ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Marty Velden has seen racetrack life from both sides, coming to the Woodbine backstretch as a groom in 1973 and signing on with management as the assistant stallman 30 years later.

Now Velden, who turned 65 last month, will be retiring from his position of manager of backstretch operations and riding off into the sunset shortly after the meeting here winds up Dec. 16.

“When the last horse leaves, I’m done,” Velden said in his office here the other morning.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gulfstream Park officials said Tuesday the track will pay stall rent for horses stabled at Calder Race Course who ship over and participate at its meet during the month of December. The 2012-13 Gulfstream meet opened last Saturday and continues through April 5.

Led by significant growth in account wagering, the Hollywood Park autumn meeting has shown an increase in all-sources handle of 9 percent through Sunday, track president Jack Liebau said.

Sunday marked the end of the fourth week of the six-week season, which runs through Dec. 16. Liebau said that the 9 percent figure was reached by comparing similar racing days this year to the 2011 fall meeting.

Hugh McMahon oversaw the Maryland branch of the far-flung Scott Lake powerhouse stable for seven years while having horses run in his own name on occasion. The 43-year-old Englishman went solo in 2010 and quickly became a force in Maryland and surrounding states, illustrated by the fact he has sent out 137 winners in 2012.

McMahon sought a winter base for some of the grass specialists that habituate his 60-horse stable and decided to give Fair Grounds a try for the first time.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Three days of dry weather, and an optional claimer instead of a graded stakes, will make Fast Bullet a heavy favorite in Thursday’s seventh race at Betfair Hollywood Park.

Fast Bullet, sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 3, was entered for Sunday’s Grade 3 Vernon O. Underwood Stakes, which was run after a weekend of wet weather.

Trainer Bob Baffert scratched Fast Bullet on Sunday in favor of Thursday’s race over 6 1/2 furlongs, concerned that a deep and heavy main track at Hollywood Park would not suit the lightly raced colt.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – While his two biggest wins have come in route races, Fiddlers Afleet’s two most recent victories have come sprinting.

Thursday, Fiddlers Afleet returns from a seven-week freshening in a $69,000 optional claiming race at six furlongs that serves as the feature on a nine-race program at Aqueduct.

Four of the six horses entered – including the 6-year-old Fiddlers Afleet – are being offered for the claiming price of $75,000. Only two, Leave of Absence and Star Harbour, are in for the third-level allowance condition.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – An affinity for synthetic tracks has led the millionaire Canadian filly Inglorious to Southern California for Saturday’s $200,000 Bayakoa Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park.

Inglorious, best known for beating males in the Queen’s Plate Stakes at Woodbine in June 2011, has not started since July, having emerged from a third-place finish in the Grade 2 Dance Smartly Stakes “a little jarred up,” trainer Josie Carroll said.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Marty Drexler struck gold with a claim here in summer 2010, taking Wild Marie for $40,000 and sending her out to earn more than $200,000 and win the Grade 3 Whimsical Stakes last spring.

And now Drexler is back in the spotlight with Gentleman Jackson, a 5-year-old gelding whom he claimed for $12,500 here last November and who has since banked $187,486 for owner Frank Cirillo.

“He turned out to be handy,” Drexler said in what may rank as the understatement of the season.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Graydar looked like a 3-year-old with the potential to become a major factor in the division during the second half of the season after drawing off to an 8 1/2-length win and earning a 100 Beyer Speed Figure when making his career debut at Gulfstream Park in April. It comes as somewhat of a surprise that eight months later, Graydar returns to Gulfstream still eligible to compete in Thursday’s $54,500 main event that will be decided under first-level optional claiming conditions out of the one-mile chute.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Thursday racing returns for the last two weeks of the Woodbine meet, with a post time of 2 p.m. All eight races on this Thursday’s card are claimers, and the newcomer Brew Blessings is an obvious contender in the seventh, a $20,000 sprint for nonwinners of two.