LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The stop-and-start summer meet at Ellis Park in western Kentucky will begin Thursday with a limited number of spectators on hand and with purses sufficiently high to retain most of the circuit’s top horsemen.

Ellis will open with a four-day week (next Thursday through Sunday), after which Keeneland will run a five-day meet (July 8-12). Action then resumes July 17 at Ellis with Friday-Sunday weeks through Aug. 30.

:: Want to get your Past Performances for free? Click to learn more.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Arguably the most unusual race meet in the 145-year history of Churchill Downs will come to a quiet end Sunday with a nine-race card featuring three straight allowances.

The 27-day meet began May 16 with the Kentucky Derby having been postponed from its original May 2 date to Sept. 5 and has been run without fans in the stands. That’s been perhaps the most notable aspect to six weeks of Churchill during the coronavirus pandemic.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Kevin Attard has some big plans for Starship Jubilee, who won the 2019 Sovereign Award voting for Canadian Horse of the Year in a photo finish over the equally popular Pink Lloyd.

Owned by Blue Heaven Farm, Starship Jubilee could complete her campaign in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Keeneland, which is three weeks after the $600,000 E.P. Taylor on Oct. 18 at Woodbine. The 7-year-old won last year’s Grade 1 E.P. Taylor over a strong European contingent.

ELMONT, N.Y. – There are four stakes Saturday at Belmont Park, topped by the Grade 1, $250,000 Just a Game Stakes, featuring a rematch between 2019 Breeders’ Cup Mile one-two finishers Uni and Got Stormy.

Uni beat Got Stormy by 1 1/2 lengths in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile to clinch the Eclipse Award as female turf champion. Uni has not run since, while Got Stormy won the Grade 1 Matriarch to end her 2019 campaign. However, Got Stormy is 0 for 3 this year.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Monomoy Girl, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2018 who made a successful return to the races off an 18-month layoff when she won an allowance race at Churchill in May, will make her next start in the Grade 2, $150,000 Ruffian Stakes on July 11 at Belmont, trainer Brad Cox said.

The Ruffian is a one-turn mile, the same configuration as her allowance win in May and as the Grade 1 Acorn, which she won here in 2018.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Code of Honor has been doing everything he can to convince trainer Shug McGaughey that he’ll be ready to run in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on July 4. After Code of Honor put in a sharp five-furlong workout Wednesday morning at Belmont Park, McGaughey said he was convinced.

Blitzkrieg, who won his second Grade 3 race in Sunday’s American Stakes at Santa Anita, could have his next start in the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile on turf Aug. 23.

Blitzkrieg led throughout the $102,000 American Stakes at a mile on turf, winning by a length at 7-1 in his seventh start of the year. A 5-year-old gelding, Blitzkrieg was winless in four starts in Dubai from late January to early March.

Trainer Doug O’Neill said Wednesday that Blitzkrieg could benefit from a gap between starts in coming weeks.

The Los Alamitos summer meeting that begins Friday, and is scheduled for seven days, will have overnight purses similar to the corresponding meeting in 2019, a contrast from Del Mar and Santa Anita, which are offering reduced purses this spring and summer because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Track vice president Jack Liebau said Wednesday that a cash infusion from track owner Ed Allred is the difference.

In the aftermath of the runaway victory by Cafe Pharoah in the Unicorn Stakes last Sunday at Tokyo Racecourse, Churchill Downs officials this week said they had received encouraging feedback from the colt’s connections regarding a potential start in this year’s Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5, adding international intrigue to an already unprecedented Derby.

The dialogue was so positive that Churchill Downs officials made Cafe Pharoah one of the individual betting interests in the Derby future wager being offered this weekend.

Arindel’s Cookie Dough is the most prominent name on the nomination sheet for Saturday’s $60,000 Added Elegance Stakes at Gulfstream Park, but the winner of the Grade 3 Royal Delta earlier this season will not be in the starting gate for the one-mile overnight test for older fillies and mares.

Cookie Dough, who has not started since finishing far back in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park, is still a ways off from her next start, according to Brian Cohen, who oversees the local contingent of the Ocala, Fla.-based stable owned by his father, Alan Cohen.