CYPRESS, Calif. – A day before Saturday’s $200,000 Bayakoa Stakes at Los Alamitos, Tiz Midnight was walked from the stables to the paddock for a routine schooling session. The trip was a disaster.

“She fell apart,” trainer Bob Baffert recalled. “She had a meltdown. She’ll do that.”

In the Bayakoa, Tiz Midnight displayed the opposite behavior. She was better behaved while being saddled and ran accordingly, winning the Grade 2 race for fillies and mares over 1 1/16 miles in track-record time for her first stakes win.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Irad Ortiz Jr., who will finish the year as leading rider on the New York Racing Association circuit in wins and purse money won, will miss a few days next week to ride in a jockey challenge in Hong Kong.

Ortiz, who was to ride Saturday’s opening-day program at Gulfstream Park, will be here Sunday and then leave for Hong Kong early Monday morning. He will return in time to ride at Aqueduct next Friday.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Kid Cruz, who emerged from the claiming ranks to be a multiple stakes winner in 2014, is back with trainer Linda Rice after recovering from surgery to remove a knee chip following his fourth-place finish in last summer’s Travers Stakes.

Rice said Friday was Kid Cruz’s first day under tack. He will walk under tack for about two weeks before starting training in mid-December.

Rice said she was hopeful to have Kid Cruz ready to run by March or April.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There’s something about Aqueduct’s inner track that brings out the best in Awesome Vision.

Awesome Vision, a 5-year-old son of Awesome Again, made it 5 for 10 over the inner track with an emphatic six-length victory in a New York-bred allowance race on Thursday, setting him up for a run in the $100,000 Alex M. Robb Stakes here on Dec. 31. Awesome Vision finished third as the even-money favorite in last year’s Alex Robb.

King Leatherbury acknowledges he had second thoughts following Ben’s Cat’s emphatic victory in last week’s $200,000 Fabulous Strike Stakes at Penn National, but he ultimately decided to follow the same path with the 8-year-old as he has the past three winters.

After all, why mess with a winning formula?

Sunday’s $200,000 Soviet Problem Stakes for California-bred 2-year-old fillies at Los Alamitos is missing one of the division’s top runners. Long Hot Summer, the undefeated stakes winner, is being prepared for a comeback at Santa Anita this winter.

Take Charge Brandi, the winner of the BC Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita on Nov. 1, will be a heavy favorite Dec. 13 in the $350,000 Starlet Stakes.

The Grade 1 Starlet is run over 1 1/16 miles and previously was run at Hollywood Park, which closed at the end of 2013.

The rumors of Turfway Park closing have persisted for years now. Business at the northern Kentucky track has slumped steadily, and management often has struggled to offer a respectable racing product.

But until something else happens, “we’re in here trying as hard as we can,” said Chip Bach, the Turfway general manager who worked long hours Thursday as the track opened for four months of winter racing.

It took a while to get Cosmic Gold’s career rolling, but the soon-to-be 4-year-old son of Mineshaft rattled off his third straight win at Laurel Park on Wednesday and appears headed to the stakes ranks.

Owned by Harry and Tom Meyerhoff and trained by Mike Trombetta, Cosmic Gold handily won his two-turn debut in the second-level optional claiming race and earned a 90 Beyer Speed Figure. He certainly could have gone faster down the lane if jockey Julian Pimentel had needed.

CYPRESS, Calif. – Texas Red is nearing the end of his post-Breeders’ Cup vacation.

The upset winner of the BC Juvenile at Santa Anita on Nov. 1, Texas Red has been in light training in recent weeks and will resume serious exercise Dec. 15, trainer Keith Desormeaux said.

“I kind of let him recover from a long campaign,” Desormeaux said Thursday afternoon at Los Alamitos. “He appreciated it, too. He’s put on weight, and he’s grown. Hopefully, we can go through a long Triple Crown campaign.”