INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Before leaving town for the Breeders’ Cup, jockey Mike Smith offered a warning to Brice Blanc, one-race substitute rider for Battle Force in a mile turf race for 2-year-old maidens at Santa Anita.

“Don’t get too attached,” Smith said.

It is easy to see why. Battle Force and Blanc stormed from ninth to first, with a burst of late speed that could make him favored Sunday for the third start of his career in the Grade 3 Generous Stakes for 2-year-olds at Hollywood Park.

Grade 1 winner Giant Oak appears to have escaped compromising injury in a training accident that occurred last week at Hawthorne.

Giant Oak was galloping when a horse spooked and ran him into him, injuring the hip and pelvis region on his hind end. Early this week, Giant Oak was vanned from Hawthorne to the Hagyard-Davidson-McGee veterinary clinic in Lexington, Ky., where an MRI, a bone scan, and an ultrasound were performed on the affected area.

NEW ORLEANS – Al Stall had horses entered in six races Thursday, opening day at Fair Grounds, his home track in his hometown. But Stall wasn’t forecasting fireworks. Not even close.

“Every time we have a bunch in, we normally have a bad day, and you go into a spiraling depression,” Stall said Friday morning. “I’m happy just to get one win in situations like that.”

Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M., has moved into the final stretch of its mixed meet and will run five significant stakes before the close of the season Dec. 4. The first of those races is on Sunday, with 11 invited Quarter Horses making up the field for the Grade 1, $200,000 Southwest Juvenile Championship.

The final week of the meet will also showcase a pair of six-figure stakes for Thoroughbreds, the $150,000 Zia Park Derby on Dec. 3 and the $200,000 Distance Championship on Dec. 4. There is also a Distance Championship for Quarter Horses, with the Dec. 4 race worth $150,000.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – If he didn’t laugh about it, trainer Gary Gullo would probably cry. Since the spring, it has become a source of good-natured ribbing from his colleagues. But it could all come to an end Sunday.

When Gullo sends out Zellweger in Sunday’s first-level New York-bred allowance feature at Aqueduct, he will be seeking his first win on turf since July 27, 2002. Since Takeiteasyedye won a $35,000 claimer at Saratoga, Gullo has lost with his last 100 turf starters.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Ian Howard will be heading back to Ocala this winter, taking a small string to Classic Mile.

But Howard has some important business in the interim, with Bridgeburner slated to go postward in Sunday’s $150,000 Display at 1 1/16 miles and Quaesitor eyeing a maiden race scheduled for next week.

Bridgeburner is owned by Howard’s 27-year-old son, Chris, who is a member of the stable crew and was with his father when the Florida-bred Bridgeburner was purchased in Ocala this April.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Hollywood Park had its first fall meeting in 1981, right about the time Mike Stidham was starting his training career. Stidham began in Florida but quickly relocated to California, and he remained here for more than a decade before eventually winding up in the East and Midwest, where he has developed into one of the more potent forces in the country.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The improving filly All Star Heart was scratched from the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes on Friday at Hollywood Park, after trainer Ron McAnally was not satisfied with her condition.

"She's not 100 percent, therefore we had to scratch," McAnally said. All Star Heart did not get sick.

"When she came back from galloping [Thursday], she was just not 100 percent," McAnally said. "That's all we know at this time."

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Coronation Futurity winner Maritimer will meet open company Sunday at Woodbine in the $150,000 Display Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile test that drew eight other 2-year-olds.

Maritimer notched his first stakes Nov. 6 in the $250,000 Coronation for Canadian-breds. He rallied wide from midpack under Luis Contreras to win the nine-furlong stakes going away, in 1:50.91, which translated into a 79 Beyer Speed Figure.

Trainer Sid Attard said Maritimer put it all together in the Coronation.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There have been plenty of bangs at Churchill Downs this fall, so it probably isn’t unfair to say the 21-day meet will end Sunday with a whimper. Not that the finale is a bad card – it isn’t.

But compared with all the important racing events that have taken place here since the meet began Oct. 30 – two days of the Breeders’ Cup, two Stars of Tomorrow programs, a terrific renewal of the Clark Handicap, and plenty of other notable races in between – the 11-race Sunday program and its mere four allowance races are regular fare.