Andy Belfiore, who has served as the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association’s Project Manager for the Mid-Atlantic Strategic Plan to Reduce Equine Fatalities for the last two years, has been named the new Executive Director of the Florida HBPA. 

We had to wait almost an entire season to see it but on an autumn afternoon Oct. 2 in Paris the clash between Trueshan and Stradivarius finally happened. After Trueshan’s triumph and Stradivarius’s honorable defeat, it may not happen again.

Leading dirt female Letruska left her connections happy Oct. 2 as she cruised through her final work in a bullet time for the $500,000 Spinster Stakes (G1) Oct. 10 at Keeneland.

Nick Alexander’s homebred Lieutenant Dan aces his second consecutive graded stakes with a sharp score in the Oct. 1 Eddie D Stakes (G2T) on Santa Anita’s iconic downhill turf course.

High expectations for Corniche just keep getting higher. The pricey auction purchase improved to 2-for-2 with a comfortable, wire-to-wire victory in the $300,000 American Pharoah Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park.

In just her second start, Ain’t Easy won the Chandelier Stakes (G2) to become the 100th black-type stakes winner for her sire, Into Mischief.

On the day Santa Anita Park unveiled a plaque commemorating six decades of dedicated service to its recently retired 100-year-old Paddock Captain John Shear, the track also announced it will rename the Santana Mile the “John Shear Mile.”

Danon Smash and Resistencia head a field of 16 for the Oct. 3 Sprinters Stakes (G1) at Nakayama Racecourse as grade 1 racing returns to Japan after the summer hiatus.

Phoenix Thoroughbred III’s three-time graded stakes winner Crazy Beautiful wore down front-running, even-money favorite Played Hard to win the inaugural running of the Seneca Overnight Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Churchill Downs Oct. 1.

The Prix de Royallieu (G1), now in its third year as a group 1 and over the extended trip of 14 furlongs, and in Valia, trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre has an excellent chance of extending his record to eight wins in the race.