INGLEWOOD, Calif. − In the spring and summer of 2009, Lilly Fa Pootz was collecting wins in $7,500 claiming races at Emerald Downs in Washington. She had yet to start on turf.

When she finally did, finishing third in a $16,000 claimer at Golden Gate Fields last November in her 17th career start, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer saw enough that day to claim her for that amount in her next start in December. Hollendorfer has raced Lilly Fa Pootz primarily on turf this year, and she has changed in the most unexpected ways.

Ohio-breds will be center stage at Thistledown on Saturday when the Best of Ohio series is held for the 24th time. The Best of Ohio comprises five stakes, four with purses of $75,000, and the $50,000 Sprint.

MIAMI – Local 2-year-old division leaders Gourmet Dinner and Awesome Feather skipped last weekend’s prep races to await the finales of the Florida Stallion Stakes on Oct. 16, with both beginning their final preparations for those starts by working a mile here on Tuesday. The colt Gourmet Dinner is pointing for the In Reality, and the filly Awesome Feather goes in the My Dear Girl

ELMONT, N.Y. – Opportunity knocks for someone in the Vosburgh, which is the first of five straight Grade 1 races on the biggest card of Belmont’s fall meet and the first leg of the pick six.

The nine entrants are winless from 16 collective starts at the Grade 1 level and well removed from the race’s historical Beyer Speed Figure par in excess of 110.

Indeed, morning-line favorite Girolamo has never run as short as six furlongs and has run just twice since winning the one-mile Jerome last October for Godolphin Stable.

Will a jockey change to one of trainer Todd Pletcher’s go-to riders help Hysterical Cat turn the tables on Bug Juice?

That’s the question handicappers must answer when they try to predict the outcome of Saturday’s $282,925 New York Breeders’ Futurity at Finger Lakes.

ANDERSON, Ind. – Bob Baffert declined to quantify Lookin At Lucky’s readiness. It probably doesn’t matter. The colt seems good enough – even at less than 100 percent – to prevail in an otherwise nondescript field Saturday in the Indiana Derby at Hoosier Park. And the race is an obvious means to an end, a bridge to get Lookin At Lucky past his post-Haskell setback and to the Breeders’ Cup Classic in top shape.

ANDERSON, Ind. – They’ve had some good horses stroll around the seven-furlong oval at Hoosier Park. A Breeders’ Cup winner, Cash Run, had a race here, and the track’s signature event, the Indiana Derby, has been won by millionaires Perfect Drift, Brass Hat, Misremembered, and another Breeders’ Cup winner, Orientate.

But there will be a new level of equine prestige at Hoosier on Saturday, when Lookin At Lucky goes as a huge favorite in the 16th running of the Grade 2, $500,000 Indiana Derby. He will be the first winner of a Triple Crown event to run in the race.

Blind Luck has won five graded races from seven starts this year, including classics such as the Kentucky Oaks and Alabama. But on Saturday, the nation’s top 3-year-old filly could be facing the toughest fight of her fairy-tale season when she gives 10 pounds to budding rival Havre de Grace in the Grade 2, $750,000 Fitz Dixon Cotillion at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Not that it is apparent in her undefeated 18-race career, but Zenyatta has a time of year when she may be better than ever, jockey Mike Smith insists.

The autumn, he said, seems to bring out the best in the wildly popular mare.

“She seems to get good at this time of year the last few years,” he said. “The way she’s going, she seems like she can do it again this year.”

STICKNEY, Ill. – The average winning time in the last seven editions of the Hawthorne Gold Cup has been 2:04.20 for 1 1/4 miles. The race is not for the fleet of foot but for the stout of heart and leg.

Morning-line favoritism in the race’s 2010 edition Saturday goes to rail-drawn Redding Colliery, whose top performances have come skipping along on a quick pace.