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.”

All-sources handle at the Belmont Park spring/summer meet was $632,205,251, a 20.6 percent increase over the 2019 spring/summer meet figure of $524,051,324, according to figures released Wednesday by the New York Racing Association.

This summer’s handle was 63.5 percent higher than the 2020 meet figure of $386,654,955. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were only 25 days of racing in 2020.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Brad Cox, the Eclipse Award-winning trainer of 2020, began training horses when he was just 22. His son Blake also would like to get an early start.

Blake Cox, 20, is overseeing the seven horses Cox has stabled at Monmouth Park this week, including Haskell starter Mandaloun, who had a five-furlong workout here Saturday and came out it “in great shape,” Cox said. This is the colt’s second time shipping to New Jersey this summer. Last month, he won the Pegasus Stakes, his Haskell prep.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Following Sea has displayed sub-45 second half-mile speed. His sire, Runhappy, won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. His dam was a sprinter, and her dam was a sprinter. Yet Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher seems confident that Following Sea is cut out to be a two-turn horse, and Pletcher sends Following Sea from New York to New Jersey to make his stakes and route debut Saturday in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Jackie’s Warrior, last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful winner, is back at Saratoga and appears to be thriving, according to Scott Blasi, assistant to trainer Steve Asmussen.

On Wednesday, Jackie’s Warrior worked a half-mile in 49.93 seconds over the Oklahoma training track, getting his last quarter in 24.18 seconds and galloping out five furlongs in 1:03.65. He is preparing for a start in the Grade 2, $200,000 Amsterdam Stakes here on Aug. 1. That race is a stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $500,000 H. Allen Jerkens on Aug. 28.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When Gary Contessa returned to training after a brief retirement, he took a private job based at Delaware Park, away from the spotlight.

In buying, breeding, and training horses for Nick and Delora Beaver’s Bell Gable Stable, Contessa is hopeful of finding horses that could get him back to the bigger races. Perhaps he has found one in Maryland Brando, a good-looking, debut-winning 2-year-old at Delaware Park who will run in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Sanford Stakes at Saratoga.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown will have two shots at winning a sixth straight Diana Stakes.

Brown on Wednesday entered both Lemista and Pocket Square in Saturday’s $500,000 Diana, the first Grade 1 of the Saratoga meet. The Diana, run at 1 1/8 miles on turf for fillies and mares, drew a field of eight, including the Godolphin Racing duo of Althiqa and Summer Romance, the 1-2 finishers of the Grade 1 Just a Game at Belmont on June 5.

The 3-year-olds Rock Your World, winner of the Santa Anita Derby on April 3, and Flightline, the exciting winner of a maiden race at Santa Anita in late April, are scheduled to work at Del Mar this weekend for expected starts in coming weeks.

The two-week Los Alamitos summer meeting that ended July 5 showed growth in all-sources handle compared to a similar meeting in 2019.

Los Alamitos had an all-sources handle of $56.04 million, a figure that included bets on the seven-day race season as well as simulcasting in the days surrounding the meeting. The handle was 17 percent higher than the 2019 figure of $47.8 million.

In 2020, Los Alamitos held a summer meeting without customers because of the pandemic. The recent meeting did not have any restrictions.