Last week trainer Chris Stenslie said she was probably not going to run Hard to Deny in the Grade 3, $100,000 Longacres Mile, which drew 11 horses and will be run as the eighth race Sunday at Emerald Downs.

But after watching how well Hard to Deny trained this week, she changed her mind, and on Wednesday entered him in the Mile. A 5-year-old Kentucky-bred gelding by Hard Spun, Hard to Deny will break from post 4 with leading rider Anthony Cruz aboard. He replaces Juan Gutierrez, who will ride the Peter Miller-trained Anyportinastorm.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A speedy 2-year-old is not a bad thing to have when you’re sprinting. Norm Casse is hoping to harness the speed Glacial has shown when he removes the blinkers from the colt’s equipment when he goes 6 1/2 furlongs in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Saratoga Special.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Got Stormy beat the boys in the Grade 1 Fourstardave here in 2019 and finished second in the race in 2020. She is back for a third straight appearance in the Fourstardave, but she won’t be the only female starter in the one-mile, $500,000 turf race Saturday at Saratoga.

The mares Blowout and Daddy Is a Legend also were entered Wednesday for Saturday’s Fourstardave, which offers its winner a fees-paid berth into the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – When Naval Laughter came back from a 1 1/2-year layoff and won an Arlington Polytrack allowance race June 3 by nearly 20 lengths, earning a graded stakes-class 96 Beyer, the performance felt fluky. And Naval Laughter did nothing to dispel that notion when, three weeks later, she finished a well-beaten second as the odds-on favorite in an Arlington first-level allowance race.

Yet there was Naval Laughter winning the Grade 3 Modesty by a half-length on July 17 and earning a shot Saturday in the Grade 1 Beverly D. Stakes.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Larry Rivelli won his first Arlington training title in 2014 and will win his eighth straight this season. He has been not just a perennial leading trainer at the meet, but an utterly dominant one. His 55 wins this season are 35 more than the next-highest training total. In 2020, he won the title with 43 winners to 16 for the runner-up. In 2019, the spread was 78-24, in 2018 it was 76-26, and so on and so forth.

Kyle Frey, the leading rider at the Golden Gate meeting earlier this year, has been riding at Del Mar and plans to stay in Southern California after the meeting ends Sept. 6 if he finishes in the top five in the standings.

“I’m thinking of sticking around,” he said last weekend. “It depends on how business goes for the rest of the meet.”

Through Sunday, Frey ranked sixth with eight wins, well behind leader Flavien Prat, who has 21 wins. Joe Bravo, who relocated from New Jersey earlier this summer, is fifth with nine wins.

Trainer Mike Maker will keep a stable at Santa Anita this fall.

Maker has a small stable at Del Mar this summer and will continue to race in California through the Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 5-6 at Del Mar, he said. Santa Anita’s autumn meeting runs from Oct. 1-31.

Maker said he will have 15 to 20 horses at Santa Anita. Through Sunday, Maker had won with 2 of 10 runners at the Del Mar meeting, which runs through Sept. 6.

Arklow will start in the $300,000 Del Mar Handicap on Aug. 21 provided he works well at Saratoga on Friday, trainer Brad Cox said Wednesday.

If he runs, the start will be the third for Arklow in California and would prepare the millionaire 7-year-old for another trip to the West Coast for the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

“It will be a maintenance work, and we’ll check him the day after,” Cox said. “We’ll do a little more homework on the race.”

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Coast to coast, this feels like the summer of Flavien Prat.

Timing is everything – which is why the fourth running of the Ellis Park Derby on Sunday won’t hold the same importance as the third.

Last August, for the first (and hopefully only) time, the Ellis Park Derby served as a key prep for a couple of Triple Crown races. That’s because the Kentucky Derby and Preakness had been postponed to September and October, respectively, due to the pandemic. (The Belmont Stakes had already been run in June.)