ELMONT, N.Y. - Boys At Tosconova, last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful winner, arrived at trainer Richard Dutrow Jr.’s Aqueduct barn Friday morning and was expected to go back in training Saturday, exactly one year after he won a maiden race at Belmont by 12 lengths.

Boys At Tosconova has not raced since finishing second to Uncle Mo in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs. Boys At Tosconova was gearing up for a 3-year-old debut in January at Gulfstream Park when Dutrow stopped on him because he didn’t think the horse was moving properly.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Informed Decision, where are you?

The Jonathan Sheppard-trained female sprint champion journeyed to Arlington Park the last two summers and won the Grade 3 Chicago Handicap as a standout both times. Sunday’s edition of the seven-furlong Polytrack race has no such clarity. Not even close.

ELMONT, N.Y. – The California-based filly Alienation, who ran second in a pair of graded stakes last summer at Saratoga, returns to New York a bigger, stronger filly, according to trainer Bob Baffert. But one thing remains the same: She wants to run as fast as she can for as long as she can.

On Monday, Alienation will try to outsprint five opponents and become a Grade 1 winner in the $250,000 Prioress Stakes, the feature event on a 10-race Fourth of July program at Belmont Park. First post is 1 p.m.

Del Mar could have an influx of 100 horses from stables moving to the circuit for the late summer and horses recently acquired by local trainers, according to the track’s director of racing, Tom Robbins.

Robbins said on Thursday that he has received stall applications from Texas trainers Cash Asmussen and Dallas Keen; Vann Belvoir from Washington, Troy Taylor from British Columbia; and Robertino Diodoro, Dan McFarlane, and Kory Owens, who have raced in California this year but were not at Del Mar last summer.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Sunday marks the halfway point of the 2011 meet, and there isn’t much doubt that Troy Taylor is going to win his fifth straight training title. Going into the weekend, Taylor had 26 wins, 12 more than Terry Clyde and Elizabeth Stolzenberg who are tied for second.

Taylor will be the trainer of record at Hastings for the rest of the meet, but he will be overseeing his stable from Del Mar where he has been given 12 stalls.

“We applied for 10, but they gave us 12 because they figured we were going to claim a few,” Taylor said.

ELMONT, N.Y. – After Defy Gravity rolled to a six-length maiden win in her second career start at Pimlico on May 8, the offers began rolling in to owner Roland Reeley. He was on the verge of selling her to Kentucky interests when he changed his mind, much to the relief of trainer Valora Testerman.

“My owner said. ‘All I would do is buy another horse and hope they were her,’" Testerman said. “I was really excited. She is that kind of horse.”

By “that kind” Testerman means the kind good enough to win stakes, something she will try to do in Sunday’s Grade 2, $150,000 Matron.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After Strike Impact dominated a May 5 turf allowance at Churchill Downs, his trainer, Pat Dupuy, started kidding some of his more well-known colleagues when enjoying a post-race beverage at a ground-floor clubhouse bar.

“I’ll be giving seminars on how to train a racehorse on Saturday mornings,” he gleefully announced.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. – As of 12:01  a.m. Friday morning, state services in Minnesota were shut down forcing the cancellation of Friday’s card at Canterbury Park. The status of Sunday’s card was uncertain as of Friday afternoon but the scheduled feature races are the $50,000 Blair’s Cove and $35,000 Shot of Gold.

MIAMI – Once upon a time, invaders dominated Calder’s premier event, the Summit of Speed, as locals continuously watched the big money leave town year in and year out since the inception of the popular series in 2000.

ELMONT, N.Y. – The late decision to run Tarpy’s Goal in Sunday’s Grade 2 Futurity at Belmont Park rather than Saturday’s Grade 3 Bashford Manor at Churchill Downs came down to simple mathematics, according to trainer Dale Romans.

“The race here is $100,000, Grade 3 with 11 horses where he’s going to be 8-1, 10-1,” Romans said Friday morning from Churchill Downs. “The race there is $150,000, Grade 2 with six horses where he’s going to be 3-1, that’s a pretty easy decision. It’s all about the math.”