'Ruckus' hits her lowest level

CALGARY, Alberta - Uncas Ruckus, a multiple stakes winner with earnings of more than $220,000, faces eight rivals here in Friday's featured seventh race for fillies and mares.

The $17,500 claiming price in the six-furlong sprint is the lowest level at which the 7-year-old Uncas Ruckus has competed.

Trained throughout her career by Dale Saunders, Uncas Ruckus finished second in her first start of the year after having missed the entire 2002 campaign. In a race she undoubtedly needed, Uncas Ruckus failed to make the lead and was between horses throughout the half-mile race, captured by Shudabinajumper.

Uncas Ruckus's eight victories have come in front-running style, and that will undoubtedly be the strategy jockey Stephen Heiler will attempt to employ here as Uncas Ruckus breaks from post 3.

- Trainer Dale Saunders, whose stable is off to an unusually slow start this spring, saddles a pair of promising 3-year-olds in Father Mike and Double Doc in Friday's fifth race, an allowance for nonwinners of two. Both Father Mike and Double Doc won impressively at first asking last August at Northlands and were put away for the winter.

- Tyko Tycoon and Sixthirtyjoe, one-two finishers in the first major prep for the May 3 Stampede Park Sprint Championship here last Saturday, should renew their rivalry in the main event May 3.

Tyko Tycoon made every pole a winning one in the prep, completing the six furlongs in 1:11 under handling from Perry Winters. Sixthirtyjoe rallied under Real Simard in his seasonal bow and should improve off the tightener.