SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Steve Asmussen has had a memorable Saratoga meet already with a chance to punctuate it even further with horses to run in three of the final four Grade 1 races of the meet.

At Saratoga this summer, Asmussen became the all-time leading trainer in wins (9,467 through Tuesday), and last weekend won the Grade 1 Forego and Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens about 40 minutes apart.

The field for the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes on Oct. 3 at Santa Anita may feature a filly who won the race in 2020 but has not raced since the spring and another who has struggled at Del Mar in her first two starts in the country.

Harvest Moon, trained by Simon Callaghan, won the Zenyatta Stakes at 1 1/16 miles last fall in advance of a fourth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland last November. Harvest Moon was fourth and third in leading stakes for older fillies and mares at Santa Anita in March and April before she was given a rest.

The Grade 2 Del Mar Derby on Saturday may be the betting race of the track’s summer season. It certainly has the field size required to earn such a distinction.

The $250,000 race at 1 1/8 miles on turf is expected to have a full field of 14, including stakes winners Cathkin Peak, Flashiest, Hudson Ridge, Jimmy Blue Jeans, None Above the Law, Sword Zorro, and Zoffarelli; the stakes-placed Crew Dragon, Hockey Dad, No Foolery Here, and Petruchio; as well as Barraza, Lincoln Hawk, and Optimstic Valor.

The number is so large it looks odd in a race record.

Myfavoritedaughter won a seven-furlong maiden special weight race on a sloppy track by an astonishing 25 lengths on June 30 at Gulfstream Park.

The race was meant to be run on turf. Racing on grass can wait for Myfavoritedaughter. The result has turned into a trip to California for Myfavoritedaughter and a start in Sunday’s Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante, California’s top race for 2-year-old fillies in the summer.

Five horsemen whose quick action averted a disaster during the Aug. 22 barn fire at Ellis Park were honored Sunday in a winner’s circle tribute at the western Kentucky track.

Marvin Prado, a groom for Eddie Kenneally, was first on the scene in freeing six horses and a stable pony from a blaze that destroyed the receiving barn. Prado braved the fire when getting the horses out of their stalls and handing them off one by one to the other men on the scene.

With entries being drawn as far in advance as a whole week, entries were already out Wednesday afternoon for the first three cards of the six-day meet at Kentucky Downs, where colossal purses once again will attract some of North America’s top jockeys and trainers to the turf-only track in rural south-central Kentucky.

The 1993 season at Ruidoso Downs is one of many fond memories for former jockey Nancy Summers, now a trainer at The Downs at Albuquerque.

That year, Summers, then 31, was the regular rider of Treacherously, who won the Ruidoso Futurity in May and the Rainbow Futurity in July only to miss a sweep of the Triple Crown with a third-place finish in the All American Futurity on Labor Day.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Phil D’Amato is showing this summer at Del Mar that it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.

D’Amato, who topped the trainer standings solo during the summer meet in 2015 and tied for the title in 2016, had an uncharacteristically chilly start to this year’s meet, winning with just one of his first 36 starters. But he’s turned it around of late. D’Amato has won with 13 of his last 54 starters to vault to a tie for third in the standings with 14 wins heading into the final week of the season.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Ironstone gave Willy Armata his biggest win Sunday at Woodbine in the $201,200 Simcoe Stakes. The personable trainer has some big plans for the son of Mr Speaker.

After ending up second in his June 20 debut, Ironstone flattened out to finish fifth in a longer 5 1/2-furlong maiden special weight sprint on July 18.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Kelly Breen said there are no visits from a psychiatrist or any other changes in his plans for Firenze Fire in the wake of what transpired here Saturday in the Grade 1 Forego Stakes, when his horse reached over and savaged the pacesetting Yaupon in the closing stages of the race.

Firenze Fire, with Jose Ortiz aboard, finished second, beaten a head by the favored Yaupon, in a renewal of the Forego that racing fans will remember for years to come.