After running second in a Saratoga turf sprint stakes Saturday with Nobals, trainer Larry Rivelli and jockey E.T. Baird were second to none in a Sunday turf sprint at Ellis Park, where One Timer was a sharp winner of the $200,000 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint preview stakes.  The 56-year-old Baird gave One Timer a sweet pressing trip, One Timer bounding away from pacesetting Just Might past the furlong pole and turning away Let My People Go and Bad Beat Brian to post a one-length victory. One Timer won a rich 3-year-old turf sprint stakes at Kentucky Downs last season and figures to show up for the Turf Sprint on Sept. 9. Nobals was a good second in the Troy Stakes on Saturday, and both 4-year-olds are high-class turf sprinters.   All four turf stakes winners Sunday at Ellis ran well, as New Year's Eve captured the Ladies Turf Mile preview, Me and Mr. C won the Kentucky Downs Turf Cup preview, and Safeen took the Grade 3 Pucker Up.  One Timer, who paid $4.42 as the heavy favorite, won for the seventh time in 11 starts, and Baird has gone 5-6 on the gelding. He gave One Timer a more patient trip Sunday than the horse got last out in the Grade 2 Highlander at Woodbine, where he was aggressively ridden into a speed duel at the half-mile pole. One Timer easily put his pace rivals away but was passed late by two deep closers. Baird was comfortable letting Just Might tow him into the homestretch through fractions of 21.23 and 43.43. One Timer collard Just Might past the furlong grounds and had plenty left to get to the wire.   Let My People Go had a half-length on third-place Bad Beat Brian, both horses racing from mid-pack. Over a fast-playing, firm course, One Timer clocked a snappy 1:00.67 for 5 1/2 furlongs. Bred by St. Simon Place, One Timer races for Vince Foglia’s Patricia’s Hope and Richard Ravin. By Trappe Shot out of Spanish Star, by Blame, One Timer was purchased by Foglia at auction for just $21,000 and now has earned more than $720,000.  ***Ladies Turf Mile  New Year’s Eve broke a six-race losing streak in style, roaring through the final quarter-mile to win the $200,000 Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf Mile preview stakes by three quarters of a length.  Her performance was more impressive than the bare margin of victory. New Year’s Eve already was racing near the back of a 12-runner field when she was impeded and checked at the head of the backstretch. Eleventh at the first point of call and 10th at the second, New Year's Eve moved up steadily around the turn under Luis Saez, who wisely kept his mount between horses at the five-sixteenths pole rather than tipping to the far outside. Getting into the clear in upper stretch, New Year’s Eve came home full of run, getting her last quarter-mile in 22.87.   Trained by Brendan Walsh for Qatar Racing, Marc Detampel, and Fergus Galvin, New Year's Eve is a 4-year-old filly by Kitten’s Joy out of the Elusive Quality mare, Awesome Rafaela, who was bred by Stud TNT. With blinkers added, she appeared to score a breakthrough victory in May 2022 winning the Grade 2 Edgewood at Churchill Downs, but the filly lost three starts to end last year’s campaign and three more to begin this year’s. New Year’s Eve did get major class relief Sunday, dropping from the Grade 1 Just a Game, where she’d been fourth, and she carried four pounds fewer than the second- and third-place finishers. A solid half-mile in 46.45 might have helped her cause, but New Year's Eve was the only deep closer to make up much ground. She was timed in 1:33.20 for one mile and paid $4.88.  For the Flag ran well in defeat, setting the pace and holding well for second while making her stakes debut following three wins in a row. She was a neck better than Sinfiltre, who stalked the pace and did lose some ground on the far turn.  ***Pucker Up  Luis Saez gave up a day’s riding at Saratoga to come to Ellis Park and made the most of his trip, following his win with New Year’s Eve in the Ladies Turf Mile preview with a victory aboard favored Safeen in the Grade 3, $292,500 Pucker Up Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.  Trained by Eddie Kenneally for Fergus Galvin and Rebecca Hillen, Safeen ($4.54) continued her string of strong performances with her second stakes win this spring and summer. Never worse than third in seven starts, Safeen won for the third time Sunday after Saez worked out a perfect stalking trip not far behind a tepid half-mile split of 48.46.  Bling set the early pace from the rail, ceding the lead for a furlong or so down the backstretch to a very headstrong Frontal Attack, who refused to settle. Bling got back in front around the far turn, but Saez was tracking her every move from just off the pace, turning up the pressure until a game Bling finally gave way in the last half-furlong. Safeen, running 1 1/8 miles in 1:46.83, pushed clear very late to win by a half-length, Bling holding second by 1 1/2 lengths over Freydis the Red.   Bred by Shadwell, Safeen is by War Front out of Tafaneen, by Dynaformer. She was sold at auction in January 2022 for just $18,000.  ***Turf Cup preview  No North American trainer can match Mike Maker’s record of moving up older middle-distance turf horses by racing them over longer distances, and Maker did it again Sunday at Ellis Park with Me and Mr. C.  A 6-year-old Florida-bred gelding by Khozan out of the Dynaformer mare Abiding, Me and Mr. C had raced 1 1/8 miles a handful of times and once had gone 1 3/8 miles, finishing a distant 10th in August 2021 at Del Mar. Ten of his last 11 races had come at distances of 1 1/16 miles or shorter, but a stretch-out to 1 1/4 miles in the $192,000 Kentucky Downs Turf Cup preview stakes brought forth the horse’s best.   If the timer is to be believed, Me and Mr. C streaked his final half-mile in 45.58 to get up by a neck over a game Cellist. Despite Maker’s mastery of the stretchout move, bettors didn’t see it coming, and Me and Mr. C paid a cool $34.   Me and Mr. C now could join two more Maker long-distance turf horses, Therapist and Red Knight, in the 1 1/2-mile Kentucky Downs Turf Cup.   Me and Mr. C now has won three straight, Sunday’s score coming after he captured a Florida-bred stakes race in June and the Jonathan Schuster Memorial last month in Indiana. Tenth in the early going, Me and Mr. C really picked up steam at the three-furlong pole, jockey Gerardo Corrales knifing between horses and into the clear in upper stretch as Me and Mr. C ran past Cellist in the last two strides. Winning time was 1:57.94, just shy of the course record.  Cellis, making his first start since December, pressed Get Smokin’s solid half-mile split of 47.80. Get Smokin, another horse stretching out from middle distances, held gamely to the sixteenth pole before Cello overtook him and he faded very late back to fourth. Seige of Boston finished third, three-quarters of a length behind Cellis and a neck in front of Get Smokin.  :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.