The most unusual race of the Northern California fair circuit will conclude the Humboldt County Fair at Ferndale on Sunday.

The C.J. Hindley Humboldt County Marathon is a 1 5/8-mile race that is always the fair’s final race on closing day. Horses pass the finish line four times during the race on the half-mile track.

Gunnar Froines, the longtime announcer at Ferndale, explained that jockeys supposedly would start the race with four marbles in their mouths and spit one out each time they passed the finish line in an effort to keep track of how many laps they had ridden.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In keeping with the theme of the summer in the 3-year-old division, the focal point of Wednesday’s post position draw for Saturday’s Grade 1 Travers Stakes was more about who was not in the race than who is running.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Hansen, last year’s 2-year-old champion, became the latest casualty in the 3-year-old division Wednesday when it was discovered that he has a partial tear of the tendon in his left foreleg. The injury not only prevented him from making Saturday’s $1 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga, it most likely will lead to his retirement.

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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Todd Pletcher sent out his two prospective starters for the Grade 2 Hopeful, Shanghai Bobby and Palace Malice, to work distinctly different half-miles here on Tuesday.

Shanghai Bobby was the first of the pair to breeze, completing four furlongs in an easy 50.09 seconds at 6:30 a.m. Palace Malice came out more than two hours later, following the renovation break, and went the same distance in a crisper 47.26 in company with stablemate Overanalyze, galloping out five furlongs in 1:00.29 before pulling up three-quarters of a mile in 1:14.61.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Paynter, the Haskell winner, is coming to Saratoga after all and will be here for the Travers.

But will not be participating.

Paynter, who missed about two weeks of training because of illness, was scheduled to van from Belmont to Saratoga on Wednesday. He will train here through the weekend before flying back to Southern California on Monday, trainer Bob Baffert said.

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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - After missing the first week of the Saratoga meet, Hall of Fame rider John Velazquez has more than made up for lost time.

Velazquez has ridden 22 winners from 88 starters (25 percent) and ranks fourth in the rider standings. While his two-year reign atop the jockey standings will come to an end – Ramon Dominguez has 47 victories – Velazquez could very well break Jerry Bailey’s all-time record for wins at Saratoga. Velazquez has 677, trailing Bailey by 16 entering the final 12 days.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The flat feature on Thursday’s nine-race card – highlighted by the Grade 1 New York Turf Writers Steeplechase – is a third-level allowance race going 1 1/8 miles on the dirt. The New York-bred Lunar Victory tops the six-horse field as he seeks his fifth consecutive victory.

On July 23, Lunar Victory came off a 5 1/2-month layoff to win the $100,000 Evan Shipman Stakes for New York-breds. He hadn’t run since winning an open-company first-level allowance race on March 3, a race in which he bled through Lasix.

AUBURN, Wash. – After three dark days to digest the results from Sunday – when Class Included dominated the Emerald Distaff and Taylor Said narrowly won the Longacres Mile – Emerald Downs enters the final stretch of its 81-day meeting with seven races Thursday. It’s the final Thursday program of the meeting, and with just 17 racing days remaining, many of the season-ending honors have been decided.

Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., will open its 2013 meet in January with a record purse structure that includes maiden special weight races worth $53,000 and allowance races worth as much as $56,000. The track announced on Tuesday that it plans to pay out close to $20 million in total purses during the 56-date meet, up from $18 million during the same number of dates in 2012.

Oaklawn’s purses are projected to average more than $350,000 a day, including $5.7 million in stakes, in 2013. The racing program is funded in part by an electronic gaming operation at Oaklawn.

AUBURN, Wash. – The owner and trainer of Taylor Said will sit down this week and map out a course of action, or perhaps inaction, for their horse following his rousing victory Sunday in the Grade 3, $200,000 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs.

Both Glen Todd, who owns the speedy 4-year-old, and trainer Troy Taylor said they will consider two options: turn out Taylor Said for the winter or aim for the Breeders’ Cup in November at Santa Anita.