INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Four months after planned, Sebastian Flyte can emerge from obscurity Sunday at Hollywood Park, where the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby is his for the taking.

Ben Cecil trains Sebastian Flyte, an attractive chestnut making his third start in the U.S., and the quietly optimistic trainer admits, “I like my chances.”

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The month of November began on somewhat of a disappointing note for Chad Brown as he watched a horse he formerly trained, More Than Real, win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Churchill Downs.

The month has gotten progressively better for the 31-year-old trainer.

NEW ORLEANS – Say this about trainer Bob Young: He is not shy about entering his horses.

Young, a Texan, is spending his first winter at Fair Grounds, and he has come out running. No wins yet, but when the first racing week of this meet ends Sunday, Young, barring scratches, will have sent out 11 starters. On Saturday’s card alone, he was to have six runners.

“I just had horses that fit the book here,” Young said while waiting to saddle Arrowmaker, who would finish second in the second race on a sloppy Friday afternoon at Fair Grounds. “I was surprised so many got in.”

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Cost of Freedom is so old that he was around before California’s synthetic track era.

The 7-year-old Cost of Freedom won his maiden in a $40,000 claimer at Del Mar on a dirt surface as a 3-year-old in August 2006, the final year before all the state’s major tracks went to synthetic surfaces. Since then, Cost of Freedom has been claimed for $50,000 by current owners Gary and Cecil Barber and trainer John Sadler, and has won four stakes, including Thursday’s $100,000 Vernon Underwood Stakes at Hollywood Park.

Even though trainer Paul Jones has put away American Runaway for the year, he still has a standout 2-year-old to run Sunday in the Grade 1, $200,000 Southwest Juvenile Quarter Horse Championship at Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M.

The Goodbye Kisser will be seeking her fifth straight win when she starts in the 440-yard invitational. The race has drawn a deep field of 10 that includes West Coast Hawk, winner of the Grade 1 Kindergarten Futurity at Los Alamitos in May, and Prospect to the Top, who took the Grade 2 Hobbs America Futurity last month at Zia.

The casino company Pinnacle Entertainment has an agreement in place to purchase River Downs for a reported $45 million, Pinnacle Entertainment has reported in a press release published on its web site. The release went on to say that the sale of the Cincinnati track was expected to close in the first quarter of 2011.

Among the Pinnacle holdings are seven casinos, including Belterra, located about 50 miles southwest of the track in Florence, Ind.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – They will scatter like the wind after the fall meet ends Sunday at Churchill Downs, departing for Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and elsewhere. The horses, that is. One will even leave Monday morning on a van bound for New Mexico, completing a storybook circle that began a little more than 18 months ago.

MIAMI – St. Maximus Gato has come a long ways in a short time. He may go even farther before the year is out if trainer Donald Hunt elects to run his still lightly raced 3-year-old in the Grade 3 Fred W. Hooper Jr. Handicap here at Calder on Dec. 11.

With stakes runners on both coasts, trainer Rick Dutrow has decided to remain in New York for the holiday weekend, dispatching brother Chip to Hollywood Park, with, among others, Cloneylass, whose experience and promising United States debut make her a prominent contender in the Grade 3, $100,000 Miesque Stakes for 2-year-old fillies on Sunday.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Handicappers of New York racing should pay close attention to Sunday’s feature at Aqueduct because – save for the extra half-furlong – it is likely to be replayed throughout the winter when the inner track opens on Wednesday.

If the subsequent editions of the second-level optional $50,000 claimer are as competitive as Sunday’s offering, horseplayers certainly won’t mind seeing this race run with regularity. A field of 13 was entered for the race, which will be run at the seldom-used distance of 6 1/2 furlongs – a distance that can’t be run over the inner track.