LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Surely she doesn’t know it, but a filly named Famed will be carrying very high expectations Sunday when making her career debut in the eighth race at Churchill.

Famed is a 2-year-old filly by Uncle Mo out of Delightful Quality, which makes her a half-sister to her Brad Cox stablemate Essential Quality, the current leader of the 3-year-old division. Both are Godolphin homebreds.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – They don’t enter for the final two stakes of the September meet at Churchill Downs until Wednesday, so Tommy Drury is giving himself a little more time to think about which Grade 3 race is next for Sprawl.

Either the $400,000 Lukas Classic or the $300,000 Ack Ack next Saturday represent a logical next spot for Sprawl, the resurgent 4-year-old who earned a career-best 98 Beyer Speed Figure in winning the West Virginia Governor’s on Aug. 7 at Mountaineer Park in his latest start.

The Maryland Racing Commission has approved a motion to eliminate threshold levels for five corticosteroids after a number of horses tested positive for one of the anti-inflammatory medications, dexamethasone, over the past several months.

A nine-race card Saturday brings the curtain down on the 2021 racing season at Arlington.

It’s nearly certain that curtain won’t be rising again – dark times in Illinois racing.

The Illinois Racing Board on Thursday handed out 2022 racing dates during its annual dates award meeting. Arlington and its parent company, Churchill Downs Inc., declined to apply for any.

Miss Amulet, third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland last November, is scheduled to join trainer Simon Callaghan’s stable in early October.

Callaghan said in a text message on Thursday that Miss Amulet is currently based in Kentucky following a fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Franklin-Simpson Stakes against males at 6 1/2 furlongs on turf at Kentucky Downs on Sept. 11, her final start for trainer Ken Condon.

Moonlight d’Oro, unraced since a win in the Grade 3 Las Virgenes Stakes in Febrruary, is nearing a return to racing in the final weeks of the Santa Anita autumn meeting, which runs from Oct. 1-31.

“She’s still about three weeks away,” trainer Richard Mandella said on Thursday.

Owned by Spendthrift Farm and the My Racehorse partnership, Moonlight d’Oro won her stakes debut in the one-mile Las Virgenes in a manner that suggested she would play an important role in stakes for 3-year-old fillies in the spring. A bone chip detected in a knee put an end to those plans.

Apprentice jockey Cesar Ortega will be sidelined until the end of the year after suffering an injury to his pancreas in a seven-horse accident at Del Mar on Aug. 22.

Ortega, 26, was initially thought to have avoided a serious injury, but further examination in the days following the accident led to a more serious diagnosis, according to his wife, Emily.

Ortega underwent surgery on a lacerated pancreas and was hospitalized for several days in late August, Emily Ortega said.

ELMONT, N.Y. – While others spent six-to-seven figures to purchase yearlings who are at a minimum seven months away from the races, owner Sanford Goldfarb preferred to do his buying at the claim box.

Since the beginning of June, Goldfarb has claimed 12 horses for $520,000 on the New York Racing Association circuit – several with partners – and has six each with trainers Rob Atras and Robert Falcone Jr. Goldfarb was particularly active during the Saratoga meet where he claimed eight horses for $340,000, including three first-time starters.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Life Is Good will get his prep for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 6 when he squares off against as many as four rivals in Saturday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park.

A race that looked iffy to fill did draw a field of five, including Chance It, third in the Grade 1 Forego; Doubly Blessed, seventh in the Forego; Fort Peck, a recent winner for $50,000 claiming at Saratoga; and Informative, upset winner of the Salvator Mile who is cross-entered in Saturday’s $200,000 Parx Dirt Mile.

Del Mar has increased overnight purses for its upcoming autumn meeting by approximately 20 percent from 2020, bringing prize money for that season to record levels and on par with the track’s summer season.

The purse increase was announced by track officials at the end of the summer meeting earlier this month and detailed in a statement released Tuesday.

The 15-day autumn meeting runs from Nov. 3-28 and includes the Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 5-6.