Today brings the biggest and richest day of the 17-day fall meet at Keeneland, and although temperatures will be inordinately hot again today (mid-80s), the weather folks are saying there's no longer a chance of afternoon rain in the forecast. So, yeah, we'd all like it to cool off a little, but we've seen far worse conditions in prior years for FallStars. We'll take it.

The main track is rated fast, and the turf course is still being called "yielding" from the heavy deluge that hit late Thursday night, although I'm guessing it might be upgraded later to "good," given all the sun and wind hitting the course.

An 11-race card starts earlier than normal, at 12:40 ET, and the stakes action gets going at 3:30 ET with the first of five straight graded events, the G2 Woodford (R6). That starts a pick-5 (R6-10) with a $250,000 pool guarantee, and then the G2 TCA Stakes (R7) starts a pick-4 (R7-10) with a $350,000 pool guarantee. Surely there'll be no problem meeting those guarantees.

Easily the most notable scratch from the five stakes is MIND CONTROL, the M/L favorite in the G1 Breeders' Futurity (R9). See our prior DRF Live post for further details regarding his defection.

As of 11:20 ET, here are the early SCRATCHES:

R5-(4); R6-(5); R8-(9); R9-(13); R10-(15, 16); R11-(1A, 8).