SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Less than two weeks after winning the Grade 3 Ohio Derby, Mo Plex returned to the work tab Friday morning with a strong half-mile in 47.51 seconds over Saratoga’s main track. Under Irad Ortiz Jr., Mo Plex got his final three furlongs in 35.20 seconds and galloped out a strong five furlongs in 1:00.91 before pulling up six furlongs in 1:14.69.

Trainer Jeremiah Englehart is debating between the Jim Dandy on July 26 or the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 19 for his horse’s next start.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Following a slow workout last week that may have been more a by-product of track condition than anything else, Sovereignty, the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner, picked up the pace Friday morning, working a half-mile in 48.68 seconds over the Oklahoma training track in preparation for an expected start in the Grade 2, $500,000 Jim Dandy Stakes here on July 26.

Trainer Brad Cox questioned the strength of the competition that Verifire beat in his first two starts, a Colonial Downs maiden race in March and a Pimlico first-level allowance in May. The field that Verifire comfortably handled Sunday at Churchill in the $250,000 Maxfield clearly had more heft.

“Probably not a killer group but a well-balanced group, and he ran good,” Cox said.

The 2-year-old colt Dazzle d’Oro sent his trainer, Tom Amoss, traveling back in time. Amoss thought about when he first came to Churchill Downs in the early 1990s, and a conversation with the late Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Lynn Whiting.

“He told me if you ever have a horse work five-eighths from the gate in under a minute, you’ve got a runner,” Amoss said.

Dazzle d’Oro, who had breezed through the spring at Keeneland, moved to Churchill and had his first work there June 11, going five-eighths from the gate in 59.80. And, yes, he is a runner.

It’s not only that Percy’s Bar is winning big, but how she’s winning big that makes trainer Ben Colebrook appreciate what the 2-year-old filly already has done and what she might get done the rest of this season.

Percy’s Bar doesn’t fit the mold of many sharp early-season 2-year-olds, who show a lot of speed and might run fast but merely are running more than racing with intention.