LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Strutting your stuff in a five-horse field of maiden sprinters is one thing. Doing it in a full lineup of stakes horses going a one-turn mile is something entirely different.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The speed duel between The Factor and Sirocco Strike in the Grade 1 Ancient Title Stakes on Oct. 8 cost both dearly. After a half-mile in 43.80 seconds, they faded to finish a well-beaten fourth and fifth.

While The Factor is part of trainer Bob Baffert’s team for the Breeders’ Cup races at Churchill Downs next weekend, Sirocco Strike will stay in California. He is part of a field of five in an optional claimer over six furlongs at Santa Anita on Sunday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Eddie Kenneally enjoyed one of the most productive meets of his 19-year training career by sending out 17 winners from 59 starters last spring at Churchill Downs, but the feat went largely unnoticed. All kinds of stuff was happening here, including a Kentucky Derby, the continuing phenomenon of night racing, an F-1 tornado, and a guy named Asmussen edging him out for the training title by one winner after having 71 more starters.

Not that it matters much to Kenneally, who in recent years has become one of the more reliable players at Churchill.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Retired Keeneland publicity director Jim Williams used to talk about the dramatic contrasts in fall meets at Keeneland and Churchill Downs. Indeed, the changes in weather, daylight hours, clientele demographics, and venues can make a racing fan feel like he’s stepping out of one world and into another.

Just having Separate Fire qualify for Sunday’s $1,218,400 Golden State Million Futurity at Los Alamitos was a relief for trainer Paul Jones.

Separate Fire won the Kindergarten and Ed Burke Million futurities at Los Alamitos in the spring. With the win in the Ed Burke, she remains eligible for a $1 million bonus if she wins the Golden State and the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity in December. The bonus, inaugurated in 1998, has never been won.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup count as the biggest events in American racing, then Churchill Downs is pitching a two-year shutout against the rest of the country. The 2009 Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita was the last time anybody else hosted these so-called majors, and it will be a three-year span, when the 2012 BC is run again in California, before another team gets back on the scoreboard.

Nuggets Please is one of a number of horses riding win streaks into Sunday’s $2 million New Mexico Cup program at Zia Park. He will be seeking his fourth consecutive win when he starts in the $180,000 Rocky Gulch, which is the richest of seven Thoroughbred stakes on a card that also includes four stakes for Quarter Horses.

All of the races are restricted to horses bred in New Mexico, and together they make the Zia program one of the most lucrative statebred championship cards in North America.

First place is remembered. Finish second, you might as well be last. Want proof? Name the second-place finisher in this year’s Kentucky Derby?

Nick Zito didn’t train this year’s second-place finisher. But he did train last year’s Derby runner-up, Ice Box, who might very well have won if not for a rough trip that resulted with him losing to Super Saver.

Here's my rundown for the Pick 4 at Belmont Park for the Bold Ruler Handicap card on Saturday:

Race 7: Maiden Claiming ($20,000)

Using as many plausible closers as possible, as it does seem there's plenty of speed in here to set up a rallier to make the last run. That list includes FREUD'S DEBUT (#1), PAPA FREUD (#3) and EUROPEAN ROULETTE (#11). I'll also use firster ROYAL ACT (#12), Also Eligible MORE THAN LUCKY (#16), and absentee BOURBON BANDIT (#8). He hasn't closed much ground in his career, but he does have nice enough works for his return.

FORT ERIE, Ontario – The 2011 annual HBPA awards dinner honoring the top Fort Erie meet performers was held Thursday evening, and although most categories had been settled, the jockeys’ race is still as tight as they come, with three riders in the mix. The final days of the meet, Sunday through Tuesday, will decide the outcome.