LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With a purse of $58,000, Sunday’s featured fourth race at Churchill Downs offers plenty of financial incentive for the participants. And though the connections of Major Marvel are in it to win it, they also have hopes for an even bigger prize in a few weeks.

Sunday’s race, a 1 1/16-mile money allowance on the grass, is Major Marvel’s prep for the $125,000 Claiming Crown Emerald on opening day at Gulfstream Park Dec. 1.

ARCADIA, Calif. – By any count, John Sadler is having a milestone week.

Officially, Sadler, 56, has won 1,998 Thoroughbred races in North America through Thursday, according to Equibase statistics. But he has won three more races in Southern California and Dubai in his career – two wins by the Thoroughbred Valiant Pete against Quarter Horses in California in 1991 and 1993, and Our New Recruit’s win in the $2 million Golden Shaheen in Dubai in 2004.

The presence of One Dashing Eagle in Sunday’s $1,118,000 Golden State Million Futurity at Los Alamitos may rob the race of any suspense.

In the last six months, One Dashing Eagle has been the nation’s dominant 2-year-old Quarter Horse, winning the Ed Burke Million Futurity at Los Alamitos on June 24 and the All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs in September.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainers Ian Black and Roger Attfield have been busy making travel plans for stakes races over the next few weeks.

First up will be Black, who is sending Really Sharp to Aqueduct for Sunday’s Nashua Stakes.

Really Sharp is making his dirt debut in the Nashua, a one-mile race for 2-year-olds that offers Grade 2 status and a purse of $200,000.

ARCADIA, Calif. – From Turkey to California, by way of England, Rhythm of Light makes her American debut in Sunday’s $150,000 Goldikova Stakes at Santa Anita.

Trained in England by Tom Dascombe, Rhythm of Light, 4, has won races in England and Turkey in the last year. In her last start, she won the Group 2 International Istanbul Trophy for fillies and mares over about a mile on turf at Veliefendi Racecourse in Turkey.

Getting on and off planes is no problem for Rhythm of Light.

While Shanghai Bobby was in Southern California on Saturday trying to put the finishing touches on a championship season, two of his stablemates will be at Aqueduct on Sunday jockeying for position on the hierarchy of trainer Todd Pletcher’s collection of 2-year-olds.

The connections of Grade 1 Frizette runner-up My Happy Face opted for the conservative route when they decided to bypass Friday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita for Sunday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Tempted Stakes at Aqueduct.

While they may have found a softer spot for their 2-year-old filly, it is by no means an easy spot.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Canadian champion female sprinter honors could be on the line Sunday at Woodbine, when Roxy Gap clashes with Tu Endie Wei over six furlongs in the Grade 3, $150,000 Ontario Fashion Stakes.

Roxy Gap has been a model of consistency this year at Woodbine, where she has finished first or second in each of her six outings, all in stakes. She captured the Grade 3 Whimsical and the Grade 2 Hendrie in the spring, and took the Grade 3 Royal North on the grass July 29.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Wise Dan, who probably will be favored in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Mile, made his first trip west of the Mississippi when, belatedly – thanks to Superstorm Sandy – he flew from Kentucky to California on Wednesday. And from all appearances, he likes it just fine at Santa Anita.

“He walked into his stall when he got here like he’d lived here all his life,” a relaxed trainer Charlie Lopresti said Friday morning, as Wise Dan got a massage and routine electro-stimulation on his hind end. “It was just like when he shipped to Woodbine. He takes everything so well.”

A bankruptcy court on Tuesday approved the sale of Yavapai Downs for $5.5 million to Gary Miller, the president of the state’s Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.

The approval clears the way for the possibility that the Prescott, Ariz., track will reopen for a summer season next year. The track closed abruptly just prior to the 2011 racing season, and its owner, the Yavapai County Farm and Agriculture Association, then filed for bankruptcy.