Pleasant Prince, the longest shot in the field at 13-1, rallied past Rail Trip just outside the eighth pole and drew clear to a 4 1/2-length victory in Thursday’s $58,800 Pot O’ Luck Stakes.

Rail Trip, the 3-5 favorite who faced some pressure while racing on the lead, finished second, 3 1/2 lengths clear of Colizeo. Modern Cowboy was fourth, followed by Litigation Risk. Afleet Again scratched.

Pleasant Prince, who won the Ohio and Oklahoma derbies at 3, was coming off a sixth-place finish as the 9-5 favorite in the Iselin Handicap at Monmouth Park on Aug. 20.

Mission Approved, upset winner of the Manhattan Handicap in June, breezed five furlongs in 1:00.91 Thursday morning over Belmont’s inner turf course as he prepares for a start in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational here on Oct. 1.

Jockey Rajiv Maragh was aboard for the work, fueling speculation that trainer and part-owner Naipaul Chatterpaul will make a rider change for the Hirsch. Jose Espinoza has ridden Mission Approved in his last four starts, including last month’s Arlington Million, where the horse finished seventh.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Though Hungry Island was a convincing winner of last month’s Grade 2 Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga, most of the focus coming out of the race was about the disappointing performance of odds-on favorite Winter Memories.

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Suffolk Downs will hold a memorial service Sept. 24 for Tom Schwigen, the longtime starter at the track who died of a heart attack last week at age 68.

Easily recognized by his trademark hats and red, bushy mustache, Schwigen was Suffolk’s starter when it reopened in 1992 and also was the starter at Rockingham Park and other New England tracks throughout his career.

So You Think, the leading older horse in Europe, will make his next start in the Oct. 2 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, trainer Aidan O’Brien confirmed Thursday.

“So You Think is in great form and all being well with him, the plan is to run in the Arc, given reasonable ground conditions,” O’Brien said in a posting on the website of Coolmore, So You Think’s owner.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – No proven graded-stakes fillies appear in the Grade 3 Pucker Up, Saturday’s feature at Arlington, but numbers alone suggest someone from this group will turn into something greater than merely useful.

POMONA, Calif. – When he purchased Heleonor Rugby for $27,000 at the Barretts March sale of 2-year-olds in training, trainer A.C. Avila was not sure what he had.

“I liked her works,” Avila said. “They were only an eighth of a mile, but she galloped out strong. And, she was a California-bred.”

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Slinkys Fortune is the highest earner in the $30,000 Faubourg St. John at 870 yards Saturday at Fair Grounds. He is also a stakes winner over the New Orleans strip, having accounted for last year’s $25,000 Los Alamitos. Slinkys Fortune, who drew the rail, is an earner of $191,435.

Paul Jones, the nation’s leading trainer of Quarter Horses, will send out top contenders Separate Bet and Strike It Quick in the Grade  2, $55,000 James Isaac Hobbs at 350 yards at Zia Park on Saturday.

Separate Bet, who has placed in five graded stakes since February 2010, could be sitting on a peak race in what will be his third out since May. Strike It Quick is the defending champ in the Hobbs.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer James Bond flew home from the Keeneland sales Wednesday night, not getting to his Saratoga home until around midnight. Bond said he got about three hours of sleep before he got ready to go to his Gridley Street barn well before sunrise to make sure Tizway was the first horse to hit the Oklahoma track when it opened at 5:30 a.m.