Is Keeneland the best place to prep for a synthetic Breeders' Cup?

WHO'S HOT

Eibar Coa

The seven-time Calder riding champion returned home this past week for the remainder of the year and couldn't have gotten off to a better start, winning with his first three mounts and four overall last weekend. He will be among the favorites to capture his eighth local title along with Manny Cruz and apprentice Luis Saez during the upcoming Tropical at Calder session.

Kathleen O'Connell

WHO'S HOT

Pat Kelly

After the retirement of Evening Attire, a fixture in the barn since 2000, Pat Kelly won just 3 races from 128 starters during the first nine months this year, but he doubled that total in the span of just three racing days.

Stanley Hough has won more than 2,100 races in a training career that began in the late 1960s. But he derives just as much pleasure from developing and selling a young horse as he does from winning races with them.

"For myself, I was always more driven by developing and selling," Hough, 61, said in a recent interview.

WHO'S HOT

No trainer was hotter opening week of the Oak Tree meet than Bob Baffert. He went 5 for 11, with a Grade 1 win by unbeaten Lookin at Lucky and a huge runner-up try by 2-year-old filly Always a Princess in the Grade 1 Oak Leaf. The Baffert stable enters the autumn season at full speed; it figures to stay that way all through the Nov. 7 Breeders' Cup. Baffert's stakes runners this weekend are expected to include Richard's Kid (Goodwood), Internallyflawless (Yellow Ribbon), and Riley Tucker (Ancient Title).

Eight fillies had barely crossed the wire Sept. 5 in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante, and some handicappers had already made up their minds: The seven-furlong sprint was a bad race, and probably insignificant.

The winner, Mi Sueno, appeared hopelessly beaten into the lane. Favored at even money, she dropped from fourth to sixth and was spinning her wheels. Somehow, she gutted it out and re-rallied to a one-length victory in a drab time of 1:23.78.

Race 3, first leg

Horseplayers pursuing Friday's pick six at Santa Anita, swelled by a $47,885 carryover, may not wish to go too deep in the opening leg of the wager. For that matter, a single might be best used right off the bat.

For many that single will be Silent Stalk for the principal reason that she looms the controlling speed of the third race, the first leg, a $32,000 claimer going six furlongs down the hill on the Santa Anita grass course.

Some 4,000 original cartoons and caricatures drawn by the famed equine artist Pierre "Peb" Bellocq have been donated to the Keeneland Library, officials from Daily Racing Form and Keeneland announced Thursday on "Peb Day" at the Lexington, Ky., track.