ELMONT, N.Y. – Alpha, upset winner of the Grade 1 Woodward at Saratoga on Aug. 31, is being pointed to the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 1 at Santa Anita, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said Thursday.

Alpha, who at 3 dead-heated for win in the $1 million Travers with Golden Ticket – coincidentally also headed to the Dirt Mile – is coming out of a sixth-place finish in the Jockey Club Gold Cup on Sept. 28.

[BREEDERS’ CUP 2013: See DRF’s top contenders]

Fort Erie wound up a 40-day meeting Tuesday that may indeed be its last after the Niagara Region racetrack received an 11th-hour reprieve this spring.

A report last Friday released by the Ontario Horse Racing Industry Transition Panel, which promised $400 million in provincial funding to a number of Ontario racetracks, did not provide any specific funding for Fort Erie.

Jim Thibert, head of the Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium, indicated that Fort Erie’s future now will hinge on a report from the province’s auditor general. The report is expected in mid-November.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Ciao Bella Luna will attempt to duplicate what Gypsy Robin did last year, sweeping the Beaumont and Raven Run stakes, when she runs back Saturday at Keeneland for the first time since winning the Beaumont Stakes here in April.

Ciao Bella Luna is part of an oversubscribed field of 3-year-old fillies in the Grade  2, $250,000 Raven Run Stakes, the richest race remaining on Keeneland’s fall-meet stakes schedule. Only one other filly has won both the Beaumont and the Raven Run, and that was Gypsy Robin.

In his historic career, Ochoa has won such races as the $2.4  million All American Futurity in 2011, and the $903,774 Rainbow Derby and $2.2 million All American Derby in 2012, all at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico.

But it was Ochoa’s performance in his California debut in Sunday’s $150,000 Los Alamitos Championship that left veteran trainer Sleepy Gilbreath and jockey Roy Baldillez amazed.

“That was one of his best races,” Baldillez said of the 4-year-old gelding. “He left there running. He ran a full race and the time was pretty fast.”

ELMONT, N.Y. – In the spring of 2011, Mission Approved – who had been claimed in the spring of 2010 for $35,000 – returned from an 11-month layoff to upset defending turf champion Gio Ponti in the Grade 1 Manhattan Handicap at Belmont Park.

A horse that wins the 2014 Kentucky Derby following victories in the Tampa Bay Derby and Sam F. Davis Stakes will be awarded a bonus of $1 million by Tampa Bay Downs, the track announced on Wednesday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Malcolm Pierce continued his banner season here last Saturday, sending out Dance Again and Smartyfly to finish first and second in the $150,000 Carotene Stakes. Dance Again, a homebred for Sam-Son Farm, became a stakes winner in the Carotene, a 1 1/8-mile turf race for Ontario-bred 3-year-old fillies, and gave Pierce his sixth stakes win of the meeting.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Bajan, winner of last Sunday’s Anoakia Stakes for 2-year-old fillies, is likely to miss the Breeders’ Cup, trainer Simon Callaghan said Wednesday.

Owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Ronald and Jerry Frankel, Bajan was considered for the $2 million BC Juvenile Fillies over 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita on Nov. 2, but instead will start a week later in the $100,000 Moccasin Stakes over seven furlongs at Betfair Hollywood Park.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Jason Servis could roll the dice and take his amazing former claimer Ribo Bobo to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. After all, the gelded son of Louis Quatorze has won all eight of his starts this season, at distances ranging from 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 furlongs, including Monmouth Park’s Icecapade Stakes late this summer.