DEL MAR, Calif. – It was at Del Mar last summer where Softly Singing gave the first indications that she could be the best filly of her crop in the barn of trainer Jerry Hollendorfer. But an ill-timed injury, and the emergence of Blind Luck, has made Softly Singing all but forgotten. Not at the barn, though.

“She’s a nice filly,” Dan Ward, Hollendorfer’s top local assistant, said Tuesday morning at Del Mar. “She needed time off for a knee. Down here, she’s really perked up. Her last two works have been terrific.”

With 14 career starts, King Ledley has had more experience than any of his opponents in the Thursday feature at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Ill. He also may have had more tough luck.

Still eligible for first-level allowance conditions, King Ledley will be favored again Thursday when he is part of an overflow crowd of 3-year-olds entered in the sixth of nine races, an “about” one-mile turf race with a $41,480 purse. Trainer Darrin Miller is hoping the Kentucky-bred colt can finally get the right kind of trip from post 2 under jockey Jimmy Graham and clear this hurdle.

Jockey silks custodian Anthony Baze and owner William Wilbur will appear before stewards at Santa Rosa on Aug. 7 to answer a complaint filed by the California Horse Racing Board after the jockey of a horse part-owned by Wilbur wore the wrong silks in a race at the California State Fair on July 15.

According to the complaint, Baze "received financial consideration and conspired to aid and abet" Wilbur in having the jockey ride in the silks of another owner. Michael Martinez rode the horse, the first-time starter Mute Rudulph, while winning the fourth race that day.

DEL MAR, Calif. – For all the planning that can go into a key workout for trainer Bob Baffert, ranging from decisions on proper workmates to making sure he is in radio contact with his riders, there is still an element of uncontrolled chaos to a morning at the track, namely that other trainers have horses out there, trying to accomplish their own goals.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Monday’s $70,000 Evan Shipman Stakes is far from the most prestigious race to be decided this summer at Saratoga. But by meet’s end it may be remembered as one of the most exciting after the odds-on favorite, Giant Moon overcame a wide trip to outfinish an unlucky Icabad Crane and outgame Groomedforvictory in the 1 1/8-mile race for New York-breds.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Grade 1 Diana will not be run until Saturday afternoon, but anybody looking to get a little preview of the race need only have come over to the Oklahoma training track Monday morning, where four of the six expected starters got in their final tune-ups for the event.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Fifteen 3-year-old fillies – including eight stakes winners – were entered for a contentious renewal of Wednesday’s Grade 2, $150,000 Lake George Stakes as Saratoga begins its first full week of racing.

There are horses coming from New York, Kentucky, New Jersey and Germany coming for this 1 1/16-mile race – which is limited to 12 starters – but a trio of fillies who arrived here on Monday from Canada look intriguing.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Brian Lynch may not be a magician by trade, but he definitely had an ace up his sleeve when he sent out Golden Moka for Sunday’s $500,000 Prince of Wales at Fort Erie.

Purchased privately out of Panama on the advice of former jockey Rene Douglas, who was paralyzed in a racing accident at Arlington last spring, Golden Moka was making his first start in six months, his first beyond six furlongs, and his first in North America in the Prince of Wales.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Before Riviera Cocktail first arrived in this country, he had been an abject disappointment, having run three times, without a win, at major and provincial tracks in France. Things began to turn around for Riviera Cocktail as soon as he got to Del Mar, where he defeated maidens in his North American debut.

That was last summer. Fast forward to this summer, and Riviera Cocktail is vastly improved, so much so that he looms as one of the leading contenders on Wednesday in the $75,000 Wickerr Stakes, which kicks off week 2 at Del Mar.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Bob Tiller will take two shots at Wednesday’s $125,000 Deputy Minister Stakes, when he runs the uncoupled duo of Race for Gold and Arepeatee in the seven-furlong sprint for Ontario-sired 3-year-olds.

The ultra-consistent Race for Gold should be favored under Chantal Sutherland. He was unbeaten in two starts last year, both in six-furlong Ontario-sired events.