ARCADIA, Calif. – Dancing in Silks, upset winner of the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, has been unretired and is nearing a workout for his new trainer, Anthony Saavedra. Dancing in Silks won the BC Sprint for trainer Carla Gaines and then made three futile starts this year for Kathy Walsh before he was retired.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Chad Brown had originally considered running his stakes-placed 2-year-old prospect Liquidity Trap last weekend in the Dania Beach Stakes at Gulfstream Park. Instead, Brown has decided take the more conservative route, opting instead for Monday’s first-level optional $75,000 claiming feature carded at a mile on the grass.

In 2010, Suntracer raced into December, and, after a brief respite, he began his 2011 campaign in February, making one start in every month since except June. That’s quite a long time for a modern racehorse to go without a significant break from racing, but if the schedule has affected Suntracer, it has only been in a positive manner. Suntracer’s ninth race in 2011 might have been his best race of the year, and if that 2 3/4-length win over 3-year-olds in the Woodchopper Stakes on Nov.

With a new – albeit interim – general manager and new racing secretary, Golden Gate Fields approaches its 101-day winter-spring meeting with a new energy. The Golden Gate meeting begins Monday and runs through June 17.

Golden Gate comes off a fall meet that ended with a 14 percent increase in ontrack handle and a 13 percent increase in attendance from 2010.

“This gives us momentum heading into the 2011-2012 winter-spring season,” interim general manager Joe Morris said.

Two of the 22 runners that Billy Denzik has in his stable at the High Pointe training center in LaGrange, Ky., look like solid contenders in the $50,000 Gowell Stakes when Turfway Park resumes racing Monday afternoon following the two-day Christmas break.

Best of Times, exiting a tough Churchill Downs allowance, and Southern Bling, an allowance winner at the current holiday meet, are part of an oversubscribed field of 2-year-old fillies entered in the Gowell, a six-furlong Polytrack event that anchors a 10-race card.

The plan is working so far, and that’s the part that shocks and fascinates trainer Mike Harrington.

Last spring, Harrington was instructed by his principal client, Heinz Steinmann, to “find another Swiss Yodeler,” a reference to the multiple stakes winner and successful California sire that Steinmann raced and Harrington trained in the 1990’s.

PHOENIX – Top juvenile honors for the Arizona circuit are on the line at Turf Paradise on Monday, when males will contest the $35,000 Lost in the Fog and fillies will contest the $35,000 Arizona Juvenile Fillies. Both races are carded at 6 1/2 furlongs.

The Lost in the Fog drew a field of 10, and eight will go in the Arizona Juvenile Fillies, in which Southern California raider Lasso From El Paso appears the one to beat.

ARCADIA, Calif. – It will be an upset if either Bob Baffert or Steve Asmussen does not win the $300,000 Malibu Stakes on Monday, opening day of the Santa Anita winter meet.

Baffert and Asmussen train seven of the 11 entrants in the Malibu, a seven-furlong Grade 1 that “always looks good on a r é sum é ,” Baffert said. “You have to give them a chance to win a Grade 1.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – The winds of change have blown through Santa Anita in recent months leading up to opening day of its 75th season on Monday.

First, before the fall meet the main track surface went back to being dirt after the Cushion Track/Pro-Ride era. It was out with the new, in with the old.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Ruler On Ice is not considering to be among the leading contenders for an Eclipse in the 3-year-old division. But he did win the Belmont Stakes and finished third in the Breeders' Cup Classic, third in the Grade 1 Haskell, and fourth in the Travers this year. Trained by Kelly Breen, he closed out the season finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Clark.