ELMONT, N.Y. – There won’t be much recent local form to go on when seven fillies and mares clash in Thursday’s Belmont Park feature, a seven-furlong optional claimer with third-level allowance conditions that is carded as race 4 and thus the opening leg of the pick six.

Except for Daddy’s Honor – who is based at Monmouth Park for trainer Jorge Navarro, and exits a tough spot setting the pace against Awesome Feather – no one in the race has run at the meet.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Nates Mineshaft, a three-time stakes winner who was third in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs in June, has joined trainer Richard Mandella’s California stable and is a candidate for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 3.

Nates Mineshaft, 5, has not started since the Stephen Foster and is not a definite for the BC Dirt Mile, Mandella said. Nates Mineshaft arrived in Southern California earlier this month and worked six furlongs at Santa Anita in 1:12.40 on Oct. 11.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The only thing plain and simple about the pick six Thursday at Santa Anita is its size – the one-day carryover is a modest $66,088.

The challenging sequence includes six claiming-caliber or maiden races, and a pair of potential singles that fall short of reliability. Race-6 favorite Striking Spirit has never started at Santa Anita; race-8 favorite Disarm is dropping in class following a good race.

The pick six begins in race 3, and bettors are expected to wager at least $250,000 chasing the carryover. Below is a glance at the sequence.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Owner Robert Courtney Jr. has been attending the races at Keeneland since he was a boy. So, too, has trainer Scooter Hughes. For all the relative fame and fortune that their stable star, Rahystrada, has amassed outside these city limits, it sure would be a crowning moment if the 8-year-old gelding could win a stakes at his home track.

The 34-day Golden Gate Fields meet begins Thursday, and as usual attracting enough horses to fill races is the primary concern of racing secretary David Jerkens.

At least he doesn’t have to worry about the seven-race opening-day card, which attracted 66 runners, an average of 9.4 runners per race. Saturday’s first stakes, the $50,000 Miss America, attracted 19 nominees.

Golden Gate Fields general manager Joe Morris and Jerkens said they have implemented several strategies to attract horses to Golden Gate Fields.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Tyler Baze had ridden the fifth winner of his 9-day-old comeback Sunday at Santa Anita when he was met by his agent, Craig O’Bryan, on the walk from the winner’s circle to the jockeys’ room.

After the obligatory congratulations, O’Bryan gave Baze a reminder of his appointments for Monday morning, which stables he needed to see for workouts. It would be a busy one, which is what Baze wanted to hear.

Tyler Baze is making up for lost time.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – If it’s a three-turn turf stakes at Keeneland, then Roger Attfield must be lurking somewhere close. The 72-year-old trainer has won 15 stakes here during his Hall of Fame career, and seven of them have come in turf marathons.

Curiously, none of those seven have been in the Sycamore Stakes, on which Attfield has taken designs Thursday. He will send out 10-year-old Musketier, a gray German-bred with a proven fondness for the Keeneland turf, in the Grade 3, $100,000 Sycamore, the featured eighth of nine races.

Sam Houston Race Park has created a $400,000 stakes race for fillies and mares to be held Jan. 26 as part of a redesigned, 21-race stakes schedule released Tuesday. The Houston Ladies Classic is for 4-year-olds and up at a mile and a sixteenth, and it will share a night card with three other stakes, including the Grade 3, $200,000 Connally Turf Cup.

The races top a stakes schedule worth nearly $1.7 million, up from $1.1 million a year ago. Sam Houston opens its meet Jan. 18. The track is to race 34 dates through March 17, pending approval from the Texas Racing Commission.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Jockey Eddie Castro is expected to return to race-riding Wednesday at Belmont Park after being removed from all six of his mounts Sunday by the stewards for reasons that are still not totally clear.

Initially, a spokesman for the New York State Racing and Wagering Board said that Castro failed a Breathalyzer test. That would have meant that Castro would have had a blood alcohol level of at least .05 percent.

ELMONT, N.Y. - October is only half over, and it’s already been quite good to trainer Chad Brown.

Brown has won 7 of 28 starts in October with five of those wins being stakes. And while winning Sunday’s $80,000 Classy Mirage Stakes with Kid Kate may not be like winning Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland with Dayatthespa, it was rewarding nonetheless.

Kid Kate, a 5-year-old daughter of Lemon Drop Kid, has won stakes every year since she was 2.