Serengeti Empress was right up with the best horses Tom Amoss has trained and is the best horse Joel Politi has owned, but her last start for those connections came in November, when she was second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

Wells Bayou came out of relative obscurity to finish second in the Southwest Stakes last February at Oaklawn Park, after which he came to Fair Grounds and wired the Louisiana Derby. He set a fast pace and faded to fifth in a division of the Arkansas Derby on May 2 and hasn’t started since, his 3-year-old season curtailed by cannon-bone bruising.

Wells Bayou has been tuning up at Oaklawn for his 4-year-old debut, which comes Saturday at Fair Grounds in the Louisiana Stakes.

Trainer Steve Asmussen hasn’t won a Lecomte Stakes since 2008, when Z Fortune prevailed, and he might not win the 2021 renewal Saturday, but Asmussen’s entrant, Midnight Bourbon, long has been aimed toward the race and should improve this year upon an encouraging 2020 campaign.

Midnight Bourbon scored a second-start Ellis Park one-mile maiden win before finishing second in the Grade 3 Iroquois, where Sittin on Go beat him 2 1/2 lengths, and third in the Grade 1 Champagne, won in a romp by Midnight Bourbon’s stablemate, Jackie’s Warrior.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Sharing, who missed the Breeders’ Cup due to a chronic foot issue, is at Stonestreet Farm with no definite schedule set regarding her return to training, trainer Graham Motion said this week.

Sharing started four times last year as a 3-year-old, winning the Grade 2 Edgewood at Churchill Downs following her second-place finish in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes late last spring at Ascot. She closed out the season finishing third, beaten 2 3/4 lengths, in the Grade 1 American Oaks on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Juan Carlos Avila reported Wednesday that King Guillermo may not run in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 23 and instead head to Santa Anita for the Grade 2 San Pasqual one week later. That would be good news for trainer Dale Romans, who would love to get recent invitee Coastal Defense off the also-eligible list and into the starting lineup for the Grade 1 Pegasus.

Jockey Drayden Van Dyke sat on an outdoor bench outside the stewards’ office at Santa Anita on Sunday morning, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere else.

Van Dyke was summoned for a review of the first and third races on Saturday’s program in which he was deemed to have used his whip in an excessive manner. When he left the meeting a few minutes later, Van Dyke had been fined $1,000 and suspended three racing days, Jan 17-18 and Jan. 22, for the separate incidents.

The 2021 Emerald Downs meet is slated to begin on Wednesday, May 19. The 50-day meet will run through Thursday, Sept. 23. The dates were approved during the Washington Horse Racing Commission meeting last week.

However, given the uncertainly due to COVID-19, nothing is set in stone.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The 162nd running of the $1 million Queen’s Plate, the opening leg of the Canadian Triple Crown and the continent’s oldest annually run stakes, will be run Sunday, Aug. 22, at Woodbine.

Traditionally contested in late June, the 2020 Queen's Plate was moved to Sept. 12 without spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Silver Dust, who won the Grade 3 Mineshaft last February at Fair Grounds, worked a half-mile Saturday, his first breeze since a 30-day winter freshening. His Bret Calhoun-trained stablemate By My Standards, who won the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic this past March, got 45 days of farm rest and is due to return to Calhoun’s barn sometime this week.

Both older horses ended their 2020 seasons with a whimper, and Calhoun hopes that Game Day Play, a member of the 3-year-old class of 2021, can start his campaign with a bang Saturday in the Lecomte Stakes.

The idea to give Souper Sensational her two-turn debut in the Mazarine Stakes on Dec. 5 ended with the premature conclusion of Woodbine’s race meet because of a COVID-19 lockdown and the Mazarine’s cancellation.

Souper Sensational debuted Sept. 26 at Woodbine with a sharp seven-furlong maiden score and came back about a month later to win the $125,000 Glorious Song over the same distance by four lengths, posting a lofty 87 Beyer Speed Figure.