ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The Woodbine meet is now just over a month old, and the road to the 162nd running of the $1 million Queen’s Plate on Aug. 22 is heating up. Second nomination payments for the Queen’s Plate were due June 30, and 45 Canadian-bred 3-year-olds remain eligible for the first jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown over 1 1/4 miles on Tapeta.

Trainer Al Stall Jr. said Carribean Caper probably will go next in the $100,000 Aubudon Oaks after the 3-year-old Speightstown filly stayed unbeaten with another easy allowance victory at Ellis last Saturday.

Carribean Caper, owned by the Columbine Stable of Andrea Pollack, now has won her three starts by a combined 17 lengths.

Letruska, the undisputed leader of the national filly-mare division through the first half of 2021 and the top candidate for the Nov. 6 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar, has been thriving in the relative quiet of Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., while trainer Fausto Gutierrez ponders her next start.

A rich Sunday card featuring a new overnight stakes serves as further reminders that this isn’t your dad’s Ellis Park.

Whereas low-level claimers competing for paltry purses had been the norm for many years since Ellis was founded in 1922, a much classier brand of racing has evolved in recent times at the western Kentucky track. An eight-race Sunday program anchored by the first running of the $60,000 Pea Patch, along with five more races with purses exceeding $50,000 (three allowances and two maiden-specials), underscores the track’s ongoing transformation.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A horse stabled in Barn 86 in the annex at Saratoga Race Course tested positive for Equine Herpesvirus-1, and that barn has been placed under a precautionary quarantine until further notice, the New York Racing Association announced Thursday afternoon.

The horse who tested positive is an unraced, unnamed filly trained by Jorge Abreu, who shares that barn with Ken McPeek. Swiss Skydiver, the 2020 Preakness winner, is stabled in that barn.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – They partied like it was 2019.

A year after fans were not allowed to attend the Saratoga meet due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 27,760 fans poured through the turnstiles Thursday to usher in the start of the 153rd Saratoga season.

Fans who showed proof of COVID vaccination were able to get free grandstand admission for Thursday’s opening-day card.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A tote error made on wagers involving Thursday’s pick six at Saratoga placed through the TVG hub, caused TVG to have to refund $41,793 to its customers, according to a company official and the New York Racing Association.

Some wagers placed on the pick six through TVG were made at the 20-cent denomination, which had been the minimum for the wager the last time racing was held at Saratoga last summer. The New York Racing Association adjusted the minimum to $1 beginning with the Belmont Park spring/summer meet in April.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The eighth race from last Oct. 11 at Belmont Park proved to be one of the more productive 2-year-old maiden races run last year in New York.

Horses beaten in that seven-furlong race came back to win five stakes, including Greatest Honour (Holy Bull and Fountain of Youth), Bourbonic (Wood Memorial), Caddo River (Smarty Jones), and Original (Manila).

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Fog enveloped both the Oklahoma training track and main track Thursday morning, but both surfaces were in good condition and plenty of horses put in workouts.

One of the bigger names to work was Silver State, the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap winner, who is preparing for a start in the Grade 1, $1 million Whitney Stakes on Aug. 7. He was credited with a time of 1:01.69 for five furlongs.

Trainer Steve Asmussen said exercise rider Fabien Wilson told him: “He felt great. He went by nice.”

Idol, winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap in March, has resumed training after a 60-day break and is scheduled to have his first workout of the summer later this month.

It is not clear when Idol will return to racing, but trainer Richard Baltas said there is a possibility Idol can be ready for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

“I’ve got to do what is right for the horse,” Baltas said. “Hopefully, I can get a race into him.

“I’m trying to get him back. He’s coming up to a work in two weeks.”