Donna Veloce, second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies last November, recently returned to trainer Simon Callaghan’s stable at Santa Anita after a springtime rest at a farm in Florida. Donna Veloce remains a candidate for the Kentucky Oaks on Sept. 4 at Churchill Downs.

“She’s back galloping,” Callaghan said. “We are planning her first breeze at the end of this month or early July.”

Donna Veloce won the Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes at 1 1/16 miles by 4 1/4 lengths on March 8 in her only start this year. She was turned out in early April.

The Grade 2 Charles Town Classic will be run this year on Aug. 28 and have its purse cut from $1 million to $600,000, Charles Town racetrack said Friday.

The Grade 1 Travers Stakes, traditionally run in late August, has been moved to Aug. 8 and will serve as New York’s last major stepping-stone to the Kentucky Derby, one of a bevy of changes to the 2020 Saratoga stakes schedule released by the New York Racing Association on Friday morning.

River Boyne, a seven-time stakes winner and one of the top turf milers in California this year, has been retired because of a sesamoid injury, co-owner Tim Cohen said on Thursday.

The injury occurred recently in training, Cohen said. River Boyne won 9 of 25 starts and earned $1,229,918 for Cohen’s Rancho Temescal and the Red Baron’s Barn of his parents, Jed and Roberta Cohen.

Tim Cohen said River Boyne’s injury is not life threatening, but will “keep him from racing.”

Plans for a stallion career have not been finalized, Cohen said.

The parent company of Laurel Park in Maryland on Thursday sent a letter to the state’s racing commission informing the commission that it plans to begin writing races for 2-year-olds that would prohibit the administration of furosemide within 24 hours of the race.

Arlington International Racecourse and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association were expected to sign a two-year contract by Thursday morning that would bring a short 2020 race meeting to Arlington.

The suburban Chicago track hasn’t yet opened its stables to horses following the coronavirus pandemic, and because of Arlington’s initial reluctance to conduct spectator-free racing and an ongoing contract dispute with the ITHA, it was feared Arlington might not host a race meet this year.

When it comes to the Triple Crown, trainer Todd Pletcher usually saves the best for last. For this year’s Belmont Stakes on Saturday, he’ll try to break on top.

Pletcher has won the Belmont three times, in each case with a horse who followed the same plan – a gap of five weeks into the 1 1/2-mile race after competing the first weekend of May at Churchill Downs.

Ollie’s Candy, third in Saturday’s Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont Park after leading by 2 1/2 lengths in the stretch, will be pointed for the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar on Aug. 2, a race the mare won in 2019.

Trainer John Sadler said on Wednesday that Ollie’s Candy will remain in New York until this weekend when she will be flown to Southern California.

Overnight purses at Del Mar have been reduced by approximately 20 percent for the summer meeting, which begins on July 10, a decline comparable to other major tracks across the nation this year.

The Del Mar summer meeting will begin without ontrack spectators because of the coronavirus outbreak. Handle will be generated from satellite and account-wagering sources. Tracks derive a higher percentage of revenue for purses from ontrack wagers.

Juan Hernandez, the dominant rider at Golden Gate Fields in the last year, is relocating to Southern California next month.

Hernandez, 28, will ride the final days of the Los Alamitos summer meeting, which runs from June 26 to July 5, and will focus on the Del Mar summer meeting, which goes from July 10 to Sept. 7, according to his new agent, Craig O’Bryan.

“Ideally, he wants to stay,” O’Bryan said.