DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Jim Cassidy and owner Norman Cheng have thought so highly of Brother Francis that they put him in several stakes races as a maiden, and he rewarded their confidence last fall with a second-place finish in the Hollywood Prevue and a third in the CashCall Futurity.

But after a fifth-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby, Brother Francis was given a break from racing, and when he returned on Sunday, he could not have looked any better, smoking maidens by six lengths in 1:15.29, the fastest 6 1/2 furlongs of the meet on Polytrack.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Bill Knauf, assistant vice president of Monmouth Park, calls the four upcoming Thursday twilight cards “an experiment” by a new management group willing to try different things.

“We’re going to see if we can draw a crowd that will come out later and stick around afterward with live music and drink specials at the Lady’s Secret Café,” Knauf said.

The seven-race card starts at 4 p.m. Eastern with the last post slated for 6:46 p.m. The $44,000 feature of the initial twilight card is a second-level $32,000 turf sprint where Wicked Tune looks tough.

Key Donation’s participation in next month’s Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs will be determined as the Sept. 8 race gets closer, his trainer, Tom Amoss, said on Tuesday. The horse earned a fees-paid berth into the Super Derby by virtue of his win in the $100,000 Prelude at Louisiana Downs last Saturday.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – An outside post going a mile on Saratoga’s inner turf course may not be desirable for most trainers, but when I Bet Toni Knows was assigned post 10 for Thursday’s Statue of Liberty Division of the New York Stallion Stakes at Saratoga, trainer Eric Reed was quite pleased.

Reed said that I Bet Toni Knows is “funny when she’s inside of horses.”

She shouldn’t have to worry about being inside of horses in this one-mile stakes restricted to progeny of New York-based stallions.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The highest-grossing films of the year have been “Marvel’s The Avengers,” “The Hunger Games,” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” but for horseplayers eyeballing Del Mar on Thursday, they might want to take a look at a replay of the second race from opening day, July 18, because it could yield a little blockbuster.

Here is yet another example of why it’s good to have a strong bench.

Trainer Rick Violette was planning to work his impressive debut winner Carried Interest on Tuesday in preparation for a start in Sunday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Saratoga Special. But when Violette arrived at his barn, he noticed Carried Interest had a tender shin. While Violette wouldn’t definitively declare Carried Interest out of the Special, he did work his other impressive 2-year-old debut winner Spurious Precision, who now may run in Sunday’s 6 1/2-furlong race.

Two jockeys riding for the first time at Saratoga this summer, Junior Alvarado and Irad Ortiz Jr., have proven to be pleasant surprises during the opening three weeks of the meet. Alvarado won three stakes last weekend, including the Prioress, and has ridden five stakes winners at the session. Ortiz is already a two-time Grade 1 winner with Questing in the Coaching Club Oaks and Poseidon’s Warrior on Sunday in the Vanderbilt.

Robby Albarado is scheduled to ride in Kentucky for the first time since he was arrested on the morning of the May 4 Kentucky Oaks, having been named aboard Sassy Image in the showcase event at the Ellis Park meet, the $100,000 Gardenia Stakes on Saturday.

According to an e-mail from Dick Brown, a spokesman for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, Albarado has been eligible to ride in Kentucky since late May, when he was awarded a temporary restraining order in Franklin Circuit Court.

DEL MAR, Calif. – August is not shaping up as the month that trainer Simon Callaghan had envisioned earlier this summer.

He hoped to travel to Arlington Park in a couple of weeks to start Belle Royale in the Grade 1 Beverly D. Stakes, intending to prove that she was not only the best turf filly in his stable, but the nation.

That won’t happen. Belle Royale, a Grade 1 winner in May, was retired with an injury last month. She was his hope for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

Phil Gleaves first came to Saratoga in 1977 with Lucien Lauren and then continued his regular pilgrimages here working for Woody Stephens until relocating in south Florida on a permanent basis in 1999. Gleaves still tries to make it back to Saratoga to race whenever he can, and on Friday he’ll return once again with his top 3-year-old Csaba, who runs in the Grade 2 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes.