Picks and Ponderings may physically be in San Diego this weekend, but we haven’t forgotten our roots.

The stakes season continues at Hawthorne this weekend with a pair of turf routes for Illinois-bred older horses.  Previously, both the Buck’s Boy Handicap and the Illini Princess Handicap were fixtures of the fall stakes season at Hawthorne, though both were last run in 2014.  In 2015, Hawthorne carded a pair of turf routes — but also allowed non-Illinois-bred horses who ran on the circuit recently to participate, and called those Illinois-preferred races the Cicero Handicap and the Stickney handicap instead.  The 2016 fall meet elapsed without turf stakes, but with the recent release of Illinois Department of Agriculture funding, Hawthorne has reintroduced the series of state-bred stakes to the fall meet.

Head over to Picks and Ponderings, read our preview of tomorrow’s pair of turf stakes at Hawthorne, and let me know in the comments what you think!