ELMONT, N.Y. - By virtue of his last-to-first victory in Saturday’s $1 million Jockey Club Derby for 3-year-olds at Belmont Park, Yibir earned a free pass into the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 6. Now his connections must decide whether they want to use it.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Weyburn, the Grade 3 Gotham winner, worked seven furlongs in 1:31.75 over the Belmont Park training track Friday morning in preparation for a scheduled start in the Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby next Saturday at Parx.

Breaking off from the half-mile pole, Weyburn broke off extremely slow, going his opening quarter in 27.37 seconds. It wasn’t until after the wire – he got there in 54.00 seconds – when he began to pick it up, going his last three furlongs in 37.75 seconds. The move came a week after he went five furlongs in 59.60 seconds.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Jockey Luis Cardenas, injured in a spill on July 16 at Saratoga, is still about two months away from returning to the saddle.

Cardenas had a concussion and pain in his neck and back as a result of the spill at Saratoga. Cardenas said he is still experiencing soreness in his back and neck but is undergoing physical therapy.

“I’m still a little bit sore in my back, that’s my main reason I’m going to therapy and to get my neck muscles a little stronger,” Cardenas said. “It’s been two months now, but I feel like my body is just coming back to me.”

ELMONT, N.Y. – The specter of Life Is Good and the availability of similar races around the same time period will likely leave next Saturday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park with at best a short field.

As of Friday, only Life Is Good and Mo Mosa were considered definite for the Kelso, a one-turn mile race that could be used as a stepping-stone to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

Grade 1 winner Maxim Rate is scheduled to be sold at the November breeding stock sale at Keeneland and is likely to have run her last race, trainer Simon Callaghan said Friday.

Maxim Rate has won 6 of 18 starts and earned $625,185 for Slam Dunk Racing, who has raced the 5-year-old mare throughout her career and later added partners in James Branham and Stable Currency LLC.

By Exchange Rate, Maxim Rate won the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes at 1 1/8 miles at Santa Anita in May, the most recent of her four stakes wins.

Los Alamitos has added two $75,000 overnight stakes to the final weekend of the current meeting, which runs through Sept. 26.

The Lucky Spell Stakes for California-bred 3-year-old fillies at six furlongs is scheduled for Friday, while the Royal Owl Stakes for statebred 2-year-old fillies at 5 1/2 furlongs will be run Sept. 26.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. will be sidelined until Saturday, Sept. 25, while serving a three-day suspension stemming from a riding infraction on Aug. 25 at Saratoga, where his mount, Winter Pool, was allowed to remain the winner by the stewards after bumping a rival.

Santana, 28, is on pace for his best year ever in a riding career that began in the U.S. in 2009. The Panama native already has amassed nearly $14 million in mount earnings in 2021. His best year to date was 2019, when he earned $16.7 million.

Desormeaux riding at Churchill

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Horseplayers couldn’t help but notice the massive mound of dirt that obscured their view of racing action this week at Churchill, where a $10 million renovation of the seven-furlong turf course is ongoing.

As horses make their way into the far turn, just past the half-mile pole, the view is interrupted for several seconds by the mound, which is actually a combination of soil, sand, and various minerals being laid as the new turf-course subsurface.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Letruska, the consensus leader atop the North American filly-mare division, was scheduled to arrive in the wee hours of Sunday morning at Keeneland following a van ride from Monmouth Park in New Jersey.

Trainer Fausto Gutierrez, speaking Friday by phone from the Keeneland September yearling sale in Lexington, said Letruska has “been doing very good” since being sent to Monmouth shortly after she won the Grade 1 Personal Ensign on the Aug. 28 Travers card at Saratoga.

Due to COVID it has been a tough couple of years at Hastings and a struggle to put together cards on most days of the current meet. Horses left to race in other jurisdictions when there was uncertainty about how many actual days were going to be run, as did many of the jockeys who normally ride in Vancouver.

However, you would not know how grim it is by the optimism shown by some of the people in the local industry. Most of the optimism comes from the results of the annual Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society’s, British Columbia Division, yearling and mixed sale held Tuesday.