SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Jack Sisterson had a career-defining moment last summer at Saratoga when Vexatious upset the mighty Midnight Bisou in the Personal Ensign to give him the first Grade 1 victory of his training career.  Unfortunately for Sisterson, a back issue kept him from being here to celebrate the occasion.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Essential Quality may not have blown away the competition or the speed-figure makers with his half-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, but he continued his winning ways, reminding trainer Brad Cox of another horse in his care.

“He reminds me of Monomoy,” Cox said, referring to the two-time filly champion Monomoy Girl who could attempt another comeback this fall. “They have a will to win. I wouldn’t say they do it the flashiest way, but they make it count.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Ken McPeek accepted that he couldn’t race horses for 21 days at Saratoga after the barn he is stabled at was quarantined because a horse there was found on July 11 to have case of equine herpesvirus.

As the quarantine is set to be lifted on Barn 86 Sunday, McPeek is beyond frustrated that he can’t race his horses here until Friday.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Fiya, a multiple-stakes-winning Maryland-bred gelding, suffered a fractured right hind leg during a workout Saturday morning over Saratoga’s main track and had to be euthanized.

Fiya was working toward a start in Friday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Troy Stakes on the turf.

The Illinois Racing Board’s application period for 2022 Illinois racing dates closed Friday with nothing submitted by Arlington International Racecourse or its parent company, Churchill Downs Inc.

Barring an entirely unforeseen development there will be no racing at Arlington next year. And unless CDI accepts a bid on the Arlington property from a development group intent on continuing racing at the suburban Chicago site, Arlington will shut its doors forever at the end of the 2021 season.

Del Mar has restored the purses of the Grade 1 Pacific Classic and Grade 2 Del Mar Derby to pre-pandemic levels, the track announced in a statement on Friday.

The Pacific Classic, run at 1 1/4 miles on dirt on Aug. 21, will be worth $1 million, the same prize money level as the 1991 to 2019 runnings. The race was worth $500,000 in 2020 when the track slashed stakes purses because of the pandemic and was originally advertised with a purse of $750,000 this year.

Del Mar has restored the purses of the Grade 1 Pacific Classic and Grade 2 Del Mar Derby to pre-pandemic levels, the track announced in a statement on Friday.

The Pacific Classic, run at 1 1/4 miles on dirt on Aug. 21, will be worth $1 million, the same prize money level as the 1991 to 2019 runnings. The race was worth $500,000 in 2020 when the track slashed stakes purses because of the pandemic and was originally advertised with a purse of $750,000 this year.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride the champion filly Swiss Skydiver in next Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Whitney Stakes, trainer Ken McPeek confirmed.

Jose Ortiz was named to ride Swiss Skydiver in the Ogden Phipps, a race from which she was scratched due to a temperature. Jose Ortiz is committed to ride Maxfield in the Whitney.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The last time Imprimis was seen in Saratoga, he was disqualified from a convincing victory in the Grade 3 Troy Stakes. The last time he was seen in the afternoon at any track, Imprimis was bleeding from his nostrils after breaking his nose in the starting gate while finishing second in the Shakertown Stakes at Keeneland in April.

Trainer Joe Orseno has put both those incidents behind him and is ready to bring Imprimis back to the races in next Friday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Troy at Saratoga.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Though he had over a year to write it, trainer Mark Casse finally completed his Hall of Fame speech Thursday night.

“I’m a bit of a procrastinator,” Casse said Friday morning at his Saratoga barn.

Casse, who was elected into the Hall of Fame last year, will be formally inducted next Friday. Last year’s ceremony was canceled due to COVID-19.

Prior to giving what he said will be an emotional speech, Casse will have plenty to keep himself busy as he prepares horses for upcoming stakes here.