AUBURN, Wash. – Noosa Beach was full of himself Monday, a day after winning the Grade 3 Longacres Mile. An injury to his right front foot, sustained shortly after he left the starting gate, was less severe than originally feared, and the speedy 4-year-old was feeling his oats.

“He’s missing a little skin, he’s got a deep bruise in there, but the injury looks a lot better than it did yesterday,” trainer Doris Harwood said Monday afternoon. “He ate all his dinner last night, and he looked pretty darn good today. He was proud of himself, without a doubt.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Tony Dutrow always felt A Little Warm was among the top 3-year-olds in the country. He just thought it was going to be in sprint races.

So when Dutrow thinks about running the probable favorite for Saturday’s $1 million Travers Stakes at 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga, he is quick to credit owner/breeder Ed Evans and the decision he made to try the horse in the Louisiana Derby in March. Though A Little Warm got beat that day – he was second to Mission Impazible – it solidified Evans’s faith that A Little Warm was a distance horse.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, so too has Awesome Gem returned to Del Mar. Now age 7, Awesome Gem has become something of a fixture here. On Saturday, he will run in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic for the fourth straight year.

He finished second in the race in 2007, and was seventh in both 2008 and 2009, but he comes into this year’s race following a victory in the Hollywood Gold Cup, a performance that ranks as the highlight of his lengthy career.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Silverleo, an impressive winner when switched to turf for his second start, will be favored to take home the lion’s share of the purse here in Thursday’s $91,100 allowance feature.

The seven-furlong turf race for 2-year-olds attracted a field of six and is the prep for the Grade 3, $250,000 Summer Stakes, a one-mile turf race which will ensure the winner a guaranteed spot in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Churchill Downs.

SARATOGA, N.Y.- What the field for Thursday’s $100,000 New York Turf Writers Cup lacks in quality it will more than make up for in competiveness with an evenly matched group of nine scheduled to go two miles and three furlongs over the hurdles in the premier event for the steeplechase set during the Saratoga meeting.

Divine Fortune and Arcadius are stablemates under the shed of Jonathan Sheppard. Tom Voss trains Slip Away. And both men agree the steeplechase division stabled here this summer is the weakest it has been in recent memory.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Ben Garner, an amateur steeplechase jockey who has served as an exercise rider for trainer Doug Fout for the past 18 months, was injured in a freak accident during training hours at Saratoga on Tuesday morning.

According to Fout, Garner was returning to his barn at the annex to the Oklahoma training center after galloping Scheming on the main track shortly before 8 a.m. when a loud bang from the maintenance shed spooked the unraced horse.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The waiting, Tom Petty and trainer Craig Lewis will tell you, is the hardest part. Lewis watched in agony four weeks ago as his horse Danzing Tribal waited, and waited, and waited some more, hoping for room to materialize. It never did.

Now Lewis has had to wait four weeks to run him back in a similar turf sprint at Del Mar. If good things come to those who wait, Lewis and Danzing Tribal are well overdue.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Biofuel headed into last Sunday’s Belle Mahone with two objectives. The first was to ensure her eligibility for a Sovereign Award, with the Belle Mahone being the third start in Canada this year, which is necessary for consideration.

Of equal importance was the fact that the Belle Mahone gave Biofuel a timely tune-up for the Grade 2, $750,000 Cotillion, a 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies at Philadelphia Park on Oct. 2.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Three years ago, Jambalaya was on top of the racing world after winning the Grade 1 Arlington Million. Now, after starting just twice in the interim, Jambalaya finally is all out of comebacks.

“He’s retiring sound and healthy,” said Catherine Day Phillips, who trains Jambalaya and owns the 6-year-old gelding in partnership with her husband, Todd Phillips. “He’s just not really standing up to the rigors of training. He still looks like a million dollars; that makes it hard to see him go.”

Junior Alvarado got the Grade 1 win on Saturday at Arlington Park, but it is Chicago newcomer Mike Baze who took over the lead in the local jockey standings with a five-win Saturday.