Ontrack handle during the 40-day Saratoga meet was down 2.1 percent compared with the meet last year and attendance dropped 3.8 percent as generally good weather could not stave off a decline, according to final meet figures released Tuesday by Saratoga’s operator, the New York Racing Association.

Total ontrack handle was $147,456,901, NYRA said, for an average of $3.69 million this year compared with an average of $3.77 million last year. Total attendance was 867,182 for an average of 21,680, compared with an average of 22,526 last year.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Three of the seven stakes that will be run Saturday in the state of Kentucky were drawn Tuesday at Kentucky Downs, where a trio of $150,000 stakes anchor a 10-race opening-day card.

Purses total more than $1 million on the opener at Kentucky Downs, the turf-only track where a five-day meet opens Saturday afternoon, although a fair percentage of that purse money will be paid out only to horses eligible to the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund.

Treasury Bill and Cameo Appearance will be trainer Wayne Catalano’s first Super Derby starters when they run Saturday in the Grade 2, $500,000 race, but the former jockey is more than familiar with Louisiana Downs.

Catalano, a native of New Orleans, currently has divisions of his stable at Churchill Downs and Arlington Park. But earlier in his career, he spent some time competing at Louisiana Downs, which opened in 1974.

“I rode there,” Catalano said. “I was the second-leading rider to Tom Greer in 1975. It was the second meet. I remember I didn’t make the first meet.”

All-sources handle was down 17 percent at the 29-day meet that ended Monday at Ellis Park in western Kentucky.

Daily all-sources handle averaged $1,189,274, a stark decline in comparison to figures for the 2012 meet. Ellis officials said in a media release that the decrease could be partly attributed to a saturated simulcast market that included Gulfstream Park running a summer meet for the first time and the closure of three offtrack betting locations in Kentucky.

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New Year’s Day and Schoolofhardrocks, winners of maiden special weight races over a mile for 2-year-olds Saturday at Del Mar, are likely to start in Grade 1 races later this month or in early October.

Recent maiden winners Divorce Party and Son of Sparta may have a significant advantage over their six opponents in Thursday’s $50,000 Whirling Ash Stakes for 2-year-olds at Delaware Park.

Unlike their rivals, who will all be stretching out from either five furlongs or 5 1/2 furlongs, Divorce Party and Son of Sparta both have a pair of two-turn races – and a victory going long – under their belts coming into Thursday’s mile-and-70-yard race on the main track.

Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., and Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Pa., will offer a pick four every Thursday beginning Sept. 12 that will link the last two races on Belmont’s card with the first two races on Penn National’s card, the two tracks announced Tuesday.

The pick four will have a 50-cent minimum and a takeout of 15 percent, according to a press release, significantly lower than each track’s usual pick-four takeout. The pick four will be offered every Thursday through Oct. 24, the final Thursday card at Belmont.

DEL MAR, Calif. – There were 127 winning pick-six tickets at Del Mar on Monday, each worth $9,020.

There was a carryover from Sunday of $297,538, and another $1,583,368 was bet into the pool Monday. It was a fairly formful sequence, with just one horse paying more than 4-1.

Del Mar is closed Tuesday, then returns Wednesday for the closing-day card, featuring the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity. Because it is closing day, mandatory payouts will be in effect on all wagers.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Del Mar’s stewards have had several difficult decisions to make this summer, and they might have had their most challenging on Monday in the Grade 2, $151,000 Yellow Ribbon Handicap, in which original winner Egg Drop remained in first after a lengthy inquiry into an incident in deep stretch.

Handsome Jack Flash won the big one for his home state of New Mexico on Monday, when he held off Reagal Eagle and Wagon Tales by a neck in the Grade 1, $2.6 million All American Futurity. He was the lone New Mexico-bred in the Quarter Horse classic run before a record crowd of 24,588 at Ruidoso Downs.