ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – A list of the winning trainers in Beverly D. history is not unlike a Who’s Who of racing. Names such as Whittingham, Mandella, Mott, Frankel, and Clement run rampant, serving to suggest that only big-timers apply when the Beverly D. is run every summer at Arlington Park.

The field for the world’s most famous Quarter Horse race will be set after 20 trials for the Grade 1, $2 million All American Futurity are run Thursday at Ruidoso Downs. The action starts at 11 a.m. Mountain time, with no trainer to be more active on the card than Paul Jones.

Jones will send out 20 horses, one in each race. American Runaway, the nation’s top ranked 2-year-old, goes in the 18th. He will break from post 2. Jones, a perennial national training champ, is looking forward to Thursday.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The Irish are coming! The Irish are coming! Two fillies from Ireland have arrived in Southern California for the Grade 1, $300,000 Del Mar Oaks on Saturday, and as luck would have it for trainer Paddy Gallagher, both are going to remain here with him after the race.

Chris Candies jumped back into racing after a near eight-year hiatus last month, when he won a Louisiana Downs optional claimer with Epiphanyfortiffany. He owns the filly and said this fall he plans to get back into training in a return that will coincide with the opening of Fair Grounds.

Candies operated a high-percentage stable between 1995 and 2003, when he raced in Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois. His best horses included T.B. Track Star, who won the $300,000 Lone Star Derby in 1999, and Caro’s Royalty, a multiple stakes winner of more than $500,000.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – On the morning after Kantharos established himself as the leading 2-year-old male in the East, two of his would-be challengers later in the year continued preparations for their upcoming stakes debuts.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – It’s not easy winning a stakes race three straight years – just ask Zenyatta, who recently bagged her third Clement L. Hirsch by a neck, or Forever Together, whose bid for a Diana three-peat fell a head short.

So, Banrock has his work cut out when he attempts to win Thursday’s $100,000 West Point for the third consecutive year.

With more than $7 million in improvements awaiting patrons returning to Remington Park for Thursday night’s opener, it’s evident that the Oklahoma City track has ushered in a new era of ownership. Global Gaming, a subsidiary of Chickasaw Nation, has changed the look of Remington’s face, apron, and guts since completing an $80 million deal to buy the track and its 750-machine casino from Magna Entertainment in January.

Pennsylvania-bred 3-year-olds take center stage at Presque Isle Downs Thursday evening in a pair of 1 1/16-mile Tapeta stakes, the $75,000 Malvern Rose for fillies and the Lil E. Tee Handicap for colts and geldings. The Malvern Rose drew 10 entrants and will be run as the sixth race, and the Lil E. Tee is the seventh race and has a field of 11.

Average daily handle at the Sonoma County Fair meet in Santa Rosa, Calif., fell from last year’s shorter meet, a decline that accelerated during the last five days of the 15-day meet, when there was no fair to accompany the racing.

Last year, the Sonoma County Fair meet ran for 10 days during the fair itself. This year’s meet began on July 28 and ended on Sunday.

Suffolk Downs will cut purses 26 percent through the end of the 2010 season following the failure of an expanded gaming bill that could have brought slot machines to the East Boston track.

The reduction will pull daily average purses down to $66,000, allowing the track to save $1 million over the final 50 days of the meet while still meeting state mandates for purse distribution.