Longboat Key will be a solid favorite to win the last leg of the marathon series Saturday at Northlands Park. The eight-horses entered will start at the top of the stretch and then make three complete laps while going around six turns in the two-mile race for 3-year-olds and up. The race is run under starter handicap conditions and is restricted to horses that have started for a claiming price of $8,000 or less in 2013 and have not won for a claiming price of $12,500 or more since last starting for $8,000.

Father Frank Niehaus, who ministered at River Downs and Turfway Park, passed away early Thursday morning at a hospice in Anderson, Ohio.

The 84-year-old retired Catholic priest succumbed to complications of internal bleeding two days following surgery.

Father Frank, as everyone knew him, oversaw the Backstretch Works of Mercy, the ministry he took up after retiring 18 years ago from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

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ARCADIA, Calif. – Paynter has battled back from serious illness and wrote a storybook chapter with his dazzling comeback victory in June, but two losses since then, including the worst finish of his career last time out in the Woodward at Saratoga, have left him at a pivotal point as he approaches the $250,000 Awesome Again Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Strut the Course, who would have been one of the leading contenders for Sunday’s Classy ‘n Smart Stakes here at Woodbine, has a stress fracture in a tibia and will not see action again this season.

“She’d breezed really well last Saturday, and seemed completely fine Sunday,” said Barbara Minshall, who trains the homebred 3-year-old filly Strut the Course for John Unger. “But she seemed a little off, after I jogged her Monday. She’s such a sound horse. I knew right away there was something wrong.”

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ELMONT, N.Y. – Five of the eight entrants in the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Invitational are foreign-bred horses, but they’ve all been racing in the United States for a while now.

Kentucky Downs ended its five-day meet Wednesday with records across the board, both in business and on its turf-only track.

Horseplayers showed their enthusiasm for the big fields and purses offered this fall at Kentucky Downs, with all-sources wagering surging past $12.8 million, an increase of nearly 70 percent over 2012. Handle on the 13-race Wednesday finale alone was $3,371,476, an all-time single-day record for the south-central Kentucky track and more than double what was handled on the corresponding date last year.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – When it comes to winning major races, Ian Wilkes proudly emulates his mentor, Hall of Fame trainer Carl Nafzger. There has been an unmistakable pattern to how it’s done, one that Nafzger frequently has said results in having a horse peak on the day of the big race – and not before.

Trainer Steve Specht’s biggest concern about Saturday’s Harvest Stakes at the San Joaquin Fair was whether the race would fill for his star sprinter Marks Mine. Specht got his wish as six fillies and mares signed up to challenge Marks Mine in the $50,000 race at the Stockton, Calif., track.

And just to make things better, Marks Mine drew the outside post, from where she can use her speed to full advantage.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer David Fawkes will be at Belmont Park on Saturday where he’ll send out his Breeders’ Cup-bound sprinter Bahamian Squall in the Grade 1 Vosburgh. But Fawkes will also be keeping a close eye on what transpires in South Florida, where he is just as live in a pair of stakes that same afternoon, the $100,000 Our Dear Peggy at Gulfstream Park and the $85,000 Birdonthewire just down the road at Calder.

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ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown is taking his best shot at Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational at Belmont Park. With no suitable spots to split them up before the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 2, Brown will run the Grade 1-winning pair of Real Solution and Big Blue Kitten. The 1 1/2-mile test on the Widener course is a Win and You’re In race for the BC Turf.