Mixed Up, the winner of the 2009 Eclipse Award for top steeplechase horse, headlines a field of 12 in the Grade 1, $250,000 Grand National on Saturday at Far Hills in New Jersey.

Though Mixed Up brings the most name recognition into the 2 5/8-mile race over national fences, the 11-year-old gelding will be challenged by a number of horses who have posted better records this year. Mixed Up has two fifth-place finishes in stakes races this year, along with a recent second-place finish in a training race on Oct. 9 in Virginia.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Negligee has had two races over the Polytrack surface at Keeneland – one terrific, one not so much. A New York-based filly, she won the Grade 1 Alcibiades here last fall, then was seventh of eight in the Grade 1 Ashland in the spring.

A rubber match of sorts comes Saturday, when Negligee returns for yet another major stakes at Keeneland, the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes at seven furlongs. Despite a sixth-place finish in her recent comeback at Belmont Park, Negligee figures to be among the lukewarm favorites in a wide-open field of 3-year-old fillies.

MIAMI – The best 2-year-old currently stabled in South Florida is the undefeated, Breeders’ Cup-bound Awesome Feather. The second best may be a colt with only a single start under his belt, the impressive maiden winner High Level Jeff, who won his debut here at Calder by eight widening lengths while earning an 89 Beyer Speed Figure when sent 5 1/2 furlongs on Oct. 10.

Multiple 2009 Eclipse Award winner Gio Ponti will be cross-entered in both the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Breeders’ Cup Mile when Breeders’ Cup pre-entries are taken on Monday, according to a manager at the Castleton-Lyons Farm of Gio Ponti’s owner, Shane Ryan.

“At the moment our intention is to enter in both the races,” Stuart Fitzgibbon, commercial manager at Castleton-Lyons, said Thursday afternoon.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – In years when the University of Kentucky hosts Georgia for a night football game during the Keeneland fall meet, thousands of curiosity-seeking Georgia fans typically turn out for an afternoon of horse racing. Uninitiated in the subtleties of handicapping, those novices surely will be bumfuzzled when they come upon the Raven Run Stakes here Saturday.

They won’t be alone.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – A small step can lead to a giant jackpot. The $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot, to be precise.

That is the route trainer Kelly Breen has mapped for Sweet Ducky, assuming all goes well in the $70,000 Seton Hall University Stakes for 2-year-olds on Saturday at Monmouth Park.

Sweet Ducky will be making his fourth start, all at Monmouth. The colt with the unusual name faces five rivals in the one-mile race.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Queen’s Plate winner Big Red Mike, who finished sixth when returning from a two-month absence in the Ontario Derby, has been entered in Saturday’s Autumn Stakes prep for 3-year-olds and upward but also was nominated for Sunday’s $100,000 Mobil, an overnight stakes for Ontario-foaled 3-year-olds.

The Autumn Stakes prep is a 1 1/16-mile Polytrack race, and the Mobil is at 1 1/8 miles on turf. Big Red Mike has never run on turf.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Wyomia, who is coming off an impressive win in the Grade 3 Mazarine over 1 1/16 miles on the main track here Oct. 9, is headed for the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs. But while trainer Danny Vella originally had considered pointing Wyomia for the Juvenile Fillies at 1 1/16 miles on the dirt, he now plans to pre-enter her in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

Trainer Ben Perkins Jr. must hope that history doesn’t repeat itself Saturday at Delaware Park when he saddles obvious favorite Love That Dance in the $125,000 Sweet and Sassy Stakes for filly and mare sprinters.

PHOENIX – Trainer Robertino Diodoro looks to double his pleasure at Turf Paradise Saturday when he sends out prime contenders in the two stakes at the Phoenix track: Waltzing With Blue in the $35,000 Walter R. Cluer Memorial, a mile turf race for 3-year-olds and upward, and Rule the Storm in the $35,000 Queen of the Green Handicap for fillies and mares at a mile on the turf.

The Queen of the Green goes as race 6; the Walter Cluer is race 8.