SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Donnie Von Hemel summed up the first 10 days of his 2011 Saratoga experience thusly: “The highs and lows of racing, I suppose.”

The high came Monday when Caleb’s Posse exploded down the stretch to win the Grade 2, $150,000 Amsterdam Stakes by four lengths. He ran 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15.88 and earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 105.

The low was Alienation’s fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Grade 2 Jim Dandy, a race he had been pointing the 3-year-old to since winning the Peter Pan in May.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Rail Trip will be the last horse to arrive on the grounds for Saturday’s $750,000 Whitney Handicap but trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. is confident he can be the first across the finish line in the Grade 1 event.

Rail Trip has pretty much been out of sight and out of mind of late, with Dutrow choosing to prepare him for the Whitney in relative anonymity at Aqueduct, where he was scheduled to have a final half-mile blowout for the race on Wednesday. Rail Trip will make the four-hour van ride up to Saratoga on Thursday.

AUBURN, Wash. – Snake Attack, Highdleburg, and A K Racer, who finished within a half-length of each other when they last met, will knock heads again Thursday in the feature race at Emerald Downs. The eight-race card begins at 6:15 p.m. Pacific, and the feature, a $7,500 claimer for older horses at six furlongs, is the seventh race.

Delta Downs, which in April announced that the Grade 3, $1  million Delta Downs Jackpot would be run on a special afternoon program Nov. 19, recently released its entire 30-race, $4 million stakes schedule. The most notable change is that the $200,000 Jean Lafitte for 2-year-olds at a mile will be returning to a fall date to serve as a prep for the Jackpot.

Trubs has reason to take a significant step forward on Saturday when he makes his first start as a gelding in the $100,000 Prelude at Louisiana Downs. The mile and a sixteenth race is a prep for the Super Derby and it will anchor a program of four stakes worth $250,000.

Trubs, who won the $58,000 Black Gold earlier this year at Fair Grounds, will be making his first start since April 6 in the Prelude. He last ran at Evangeline Downs, finishing third in the $50,000 Inaugural.

Connecting the dots seems easy enough. Dreamy Kid defeated Coil in the Swaps Stakes, and after Coil came back to win the Haskell Invitational in such impressive fashion last weekend at Monmouth Park, it’s only logical that Dreamy Kid should be among the horses to beat Saturday in the 42nd running of the Grade  2, $750,000 West Virginia Derby at the Mountaineer Racetrack and Casino.

WEST VIRGINIA DERBY DAY: Video Analysis, news, PPs and LIVE streaming video of the entire card.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Rule, who has run in eight straight graded stakes, including two Grade 1 races dating back to the end of his 2-year-old season, will seemingly be getting a little class relief when trainer Todd Pletcher drops him into Thursday’s $75,000 Birdstone at Saratoga. But the 1 1/8-mile overnight stakes has not come up an easy spot, in part because of its positioning on the calendar, which makes the race a potential stepping-stone to the Grade 1 Woodward on Sept. 3.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainers Jonathan Sheppard and Tom Voss have combined to win six of the 14 runnings of the A.P. Smithwick Memorial Steeplechase, and they have four of the six runners entered in Thursday’s renewal of the Grade 2, $75,000 event, to be run at 2 1/16 miles over nine National fences at Saratoga.

Percentage-wise, it would be tough to top what Andy Hansen has been getting done with his depleted stable at Arlington Park, but that doesn’t necessarily sit well with the 48-year-old trainer.

“I’m down to just a handful of horses,” said Hansen. “For whatever reasons, I’ve lost a lot of horses to injury and attrition.”

DEL MAR, Calif. - For most of her career, Ultra Blend has raced against California-breds, and done quite well. But her trainer, Art Sherman, has recently warmed to the idea of trying her against the best company out there, and Ultra Blend has continued to excel.In her last two starts, both Grade 2 races at Hollywood Park, Ultra Blend won the Milady Handicap via disqualification, and then lost by a whisker in the A Gleam Handicap.