ELMONT, N.Y. – On Monday morning, after watching Royal Delta put in her final workout for Saturday’s Grade 1, $350,000 Beldame Invitational, trainer Bill Mott was asked if he felt his 3-year-old filly was up to taking on Havre de Grace, the leading older filly and mare in training.

“She’s very good right now,’’ Mott said of Royal Delta. “We might give her a challenge.’’

Though Mott never uttered these words, it sure seemed like he was saying, “Bring her on.’’

ELMONT, N.Y. – Major League Baseball’s Fall Classic begins Oct. 19, but the march to it began Friday night with the divisional playoffs, including one series at Yankee Stadium. Nineteen miles away at Belmont Park, preparations for Thoroughbred racing’s version of the World Series – the Breeders’ Cup Championships on Nov. 4-5 at Churchill Downs – are set to take place on a Super Saturday program that may actually live up to the billing.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Though his résumé this year is lacking a quality victory and he is running in the only stakes on the card that is not a Grade 1, Uncle Mo still remains the most compelling equine figure on Belmont Park’s Super Saturday program.

With a strong performance in the Grade 2, $200,000 Kelso Stakes, Uncle Mo makes himself a focal point of the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs. A poor performance could mean the end of the line for a horse who in 2010 generated one of the strongest 2-year-old campaigns in recent memory.

STICKNEY, Ill. – Grape vines bearing fruit climb nearly every fence surrounding the vast Arlington Park property. In turf races there, the horses disappear behind what the track announcer often calls “the little woods,” a reference to the Longchamp course in Paris.

ARCADIA, Calif. – While the focus of the Grade 1, $250,000 Lady’s Secret Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita rightly focuses on the match between champion Blind Luck and Eastern invader Ask the Moon, trainer John Sadler is hoping he can sneak up on those two with Zazu, who twice in her career has pulled off mild upsets against marquee runners.

ANDERSON, Ind. – A Z Warrior was a Grade 1 winner last fall but didn’t progress sufficiently for Bob Baffert to make the Kentucky Oaks, which Baffert won anyway with Plum Pretty.

Daisy Devine earned a spot in the Oaks with a terrific winter campaign in Louisiana, but little has gone right for her since. She was seventh in the Oaks, then ran even worse when she was drubbed as an odds-on favorite in her only subsequent start.

It’s Tricky embodies the notion that one would rather have a fast horse with a bad mind than a slow horse with a good one.

Once It’s Tricky finds herself in a horse race she’s fine – really fine. Back-to-back Grade 1 wins in the Acorn and Coaching Club American Oaks in New York put her in the 3-year-old-filly championship conversation. It’s the more mundane stuff with which It’s Tricky struggles. A couple minutes after winning the Coaching Club at Saratoga, It’s Tricky ejected jockey Eddie Castro from the saddle. And that was not the first incident.

ARCADIA, Calif. – After an odyssey that sent him to West Virginia and Texas, in addition to Hollywood Park and Del Mar, Game On Dude returns to the scene of the crime, er, his greatest win, when he heads the field Saturday in the Grade 1, $250,000 Goodwood Stakes at Santa Anita.

It was here on March 5 that Game On Dude survived a rough stretch run and lengthy stewards’ inquiry to win the Santa Anita Handicap. And though he has run well in four subsequent starts, Game On Dude has not won since the Big Cap, which marked his second straight victory at Santa Anita.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The first major transition of Drill’s career occurred in consecutive starts during the summer at Del Mar, when the highly-promising 2-year-old beat maidens in August and then won the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 7.

“There is a lot of raw talent there,” trainer Bob Baffert said.