LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Carl Bowman is confident Ravi’s Song will run a strong race Sunday as one of the favorites in the featured Cardinal Handicap on the Churchill Downs turf. Ravi’s Song was a solid performer on dirt before Bowman elected this past summer to switch the gray mare to turf, where she was second in back-to-back Grade 3 races, the June 11 Mint Julep at Churchill and the July 31 Matchmaker at Monmouth Park.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – By the time they run the Grade 3 Cardinal Handicap at Churchill Downs late Sunday afternoon, another 15 Breeders’ Cup races will be in the books. That will make 33 BC events since Tapitsfly upset the Juvenile Fillies Turf on Nov. 6, 2009, at Santa Anita, rendering the gray filly’s jaunt into the history books something of a distant memory.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Pluck, the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner, underwent successful surgery Thursday at a Lexington equine clinic to repair the colt’s twisted colon, which was diagnosed a few hours before he was to run in the Grade 3 Commonwealth Stakes at Churchill Downs.

According to a press release sent out by Team Valor International, which owns Pluck in partnership with The Vinery, surgeons at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute In Lexington, Ky., found the colt was suffering from a torsion, or full twist, of the large colon.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Creative Cause, a leading contender for the Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, did not train over a wet track at Churchill Downs Friday morning, a day after an incident in which he was kicked by a pony during training hours.

Trainer Mike Harrington said his colt was not injured by the kick, saying it only “brushed the hair” of his colt’s hock. He said the horse did not train Friday in no part because of the kick, although he did not specify why.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Churchill Downs's main track was rated muddy for training hours on Friday morning, but track superintendent Butch Lehr said he thought it would be "close to good" by first post time at 2 p.m. Eastern for the first of two Breeders' Cup cards here.

Lehr said Churchill Downs absorbed approximately three-quarters of an inch of rain with the storm that first began Thursday morning. Although it was cloudy Friday morning, the clouds were dissipating.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Sagamore Farm trumpeted its return to prominence with a Breeders’ Cup shocker last year at Churchill Downs when Shared Account took the BC Filly and Mare Turf at 45-1. Sagamore got a little more of the same on the eve of the two-day 2011 Breeders’ Cup when Humble and Hungry rallied under Jose Lezcano to post an 11-1 upset Thursday at Churchill in the Grade 3, $111,200 Commonwealth Turf.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hold off on those end-of-career encomiums focused on multiple champion Gio Ponti. That Gio Ponti will go to stud at owner Shane Ryan’s Castleton-Lyons farm for 2012 has been decided, but it is not entirely certain that Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Mile, in which Gio Ponti might be second choice behind Goldikova, will be his final start.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There were Breeders’ Cup towels everywhere on the racetrack Thursday at Churchill Downs, not surprising with the first of the two Cup cards little more than 24 hours away. Unfortunately, rain began falling shortly before 9:30 a.m., closing the turf course and forcing the connections of nearly a dozen Breeders’ Cup runners to call an unexpected audible most notably Sea Moon (Turf), who was scheduled to work six furlongs on the grass.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There is no glass ceiling at the Breeders’ Cup. In recent years, quite often it has been ladies, first.

Goldikova has won the Breeders’ Cup Mile the last three years racing against the boys. Two years ago, Zenyatta won the Classic, and she was the focal point of last year’s Breeders’ Cup, when she just missed in her attempt to win the Classic for the second straight year.

Switch, the second choice on the morning line for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Churchill Downs on Friday, will be withdrawn from the Keeneland sale on Monday and will race next year at 5, according to trainer John Sadler.

“The original plan was to sell her, but we’ve decided recently to go on and run her again,” Sadler said. “That’s good news for us.”

Turbulent Descent, the solid favorite for the Filly and Mare Sprint, also will be withdrawn from the Fasig-Tipton sale on Sunday and will race next year, according to trainer Mike Puype.