Tonight Rainbow back in favorite spot

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - Tonight Rainbow returns to Fonner Park as the defending champion in Saturday's $10,000 Grasmick Stakes at a half-mile as he opens his 2007 campaign.

Trained by Boyd Caster, Tonight Rainbow also won this race in 2004 and has become a fan favorite around Fonner Park. He also won the Budweiser-Tondi and Dowd Mile Stakes here last year and owns a career mark of 10-1-3 from 19 starts over this five-eighths-mile track. Chad Benjamin will come in to ride for Caster, who has based his stable in Oklahoma.

Triner David Anderson has three uncoupled interests among the six in the Grasmick in Bevys Dazzler, Classy Sheikh, and Stutterin' Bill. Classy Sheikh did not race in 2006 but has shown blazing early speed. A winner of 10 Thoroughbred races and more than $220,000, Classy Sheikh defeated Quarter Horses in the 870-yard Mean Competitor Stakes at Canterbury and in the Prairie Meadows 870 Handicap in a 2005 campaign that saw him staying near the half-mile distance. R.D. Williams has the ride.

Prince Tutta, trained by Kim Veerhusen, heads to Nebraska off a third against $25,000 claimers at Aqueduct in early January. Previously trained by Mark Hennig, Prince Tutta has only two wins, but he appears to have enough early speed to be a factor in this dash. Larren Delorme is set to ride.