AUBURN, Wash. – The biggest week on Emerald Downs’s calendar is set to begin on a quiet note both Thursday and Friday, with compact fields – an average of 5.9 horses per race – lined up for seven-race cards each night. The momentum will build dramatically Saturday with the running of the WTBOA Lads Stakes for 2-year-olds, before hitting the meeting’s high notes Sunday, when the $65,000 Emerald Distaff serves as a warmup act for the Grade  3, $200,000 Longacres Mile.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Eden’s Moon, winner of the San Clemente Handicap here earlier in the meet, and Lady of Shamrock, who captured the American Oaks at Betfair Hollywood Park in her last start, are set for a showdown on Saturday in the Grade 1, $300,000 Del Mar Oaks, the championship race of the meet for 3-year-old fillies and the highlight of the weekend’s stakes action at Del Mar.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Vaundell hasn’t raced in 16 months, and when he came breezing through the stretch for a quarter-mile blowout Monday morning here at Del Mar, he looked eager to do a whole lot more. The thing is, the willingness has never been a problem for the 6-year-old gelding. But he’s been betrayed by soundness issues that have limited him to just seven races, so there’s no messing around when he comes back in Thursday’s featured seventh race at Del Mar.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Mark Bacon and Dana Wells met one long-ago afternoon in the dingy confines of the old Sports Spectrum simulcast parlor in Louisville, Ky. It was a chance meeting made possible only by their shared passion for playing the races.

“You’d have never guessed then that we’d be in this position now as owners,” said Bacon.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Through the first 22 cards of the meet, through Monday, Saratoga has hosted nine more races - or the equivalent of one twilight Friday card - than it did last year at this time, resulting in a 6.5 percent increase in all-sources handle when compared to 2011.

All-sources handle was $310,065,500, a daily average of $14,093,886, compared with $291,181,532 wagered at this point in the meet in 2011. There have been 228 races run at this meet, compared to 219 run last year.

DEL MAR, Calif. - As the field in Saturday’s sixth race came to the finish, Woodmans Luck suddenly reached to his left and attempted to bite Romeo Royale, who was in the process of winning the race and sending Woodmans Luck to his fourth straight runner-up finish and seventh second-place finish in 19 starts.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Wagering was halted several minutes before Saratoga’s ninth race on Monday when the New York State Racing and Wagering Board steward mistakenly hit the button that closes wagering.

Carmine Donofrio, the racing board steward, said he walked into the office where a bank of televisions show the races and he saw a field of horses breaking from the gate. Believing it was the ninth race at Saratoga, he hit the button that closed wagering even there were still at least two minutes to post.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Sensible Lady added Saratoga to the growing list of turf courses she has conquered, rallying widest of all turning for home under Xavier Perez and drawing clear to win Monday’s $100,000 Coronation Cup by 2 3/4 lengths.

Kiss in the Forest, who set the pace, held second by a half-length over Spun Cap.

Aruna, one of the main contenders for the Grade 1, $750,000 Beverly D. on Saturday, at Arlington Park, had her final prep for the 1 3/16-mile race by breezing five furlongs Monday morning in 1:01.40 at her Fair Hill training center base in Maryland.

Trainer Graham Motion was on hand from Saratoga to oversee the breeze and was to send Aruna on a Federal Express flight to Chicago on Tuesday night.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Old Time Hockey and My Best Brother, separated by a nose in that order in the La Jolla Handicap on Saturday, are both expected to compete in the Grade 2, $300,000 Del Mar Derby on Sept. 2.

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My Best Brother defeated Old Time Hockey in a division of the Oceanside Stakes on opening day, but Old Time Hockey evened their Del Mar rivalry at one win apiece.