ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The speedy King Elvis returns to Woodbine off a freshening in Friday’s eighth and final race. With the rail at zero feet, can he win the projected front-end battle and the war in the one-mile inner turf route?

King Elvis wired nonwinners-of-two opponents here in the fall, after which he wintered at Palm Meadows with trainer Marty Drexler. He finished fourth, third, and sixth in a trio of tough $35,000 conditioned claimers at Gulfstream Park against the likes of Fly the W, Spy Hunger, and his classy stablemate Frosted Over.

Emerald Downs trainer Charles Essex has a pair of horses who have a lot in common entered in Saturday’s seventh race, a $20,000 claiming race for fillies and mares contested at six furlongs.

Hannahaza Hetty and Stay Sassy both have alliterative names, and both are 5-year-old mares. Both have three wins and three seconds from nine career starts, and both have won from off the lead or on it.

Trainer Justin Evans is the father of three young children, two of whom love joining their dad on the Emerald Downs backstretch.

“My daughter [Addison] and [son] Austin are both at the barn from bell to bell – from 4:30 in the morning to when we leave at night,” said Evans, who pulled into his customary spot atop the Emerald win rankings this past weekend. “My daughter says she wants to be a jockey when she gets big. They have a rivalry between them. If one of Austin’s horses wins and hers doesn’t, she gets upset. It’s a sibling rivalry, and I’m stuck in the middle of it.”

Ascot in the fall did not end well for the colt Los Angeles. Thirteen days after finishing third in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Los Angeles struggled home ninth in the Champion Stakes, contested over a very soft Ascot course. The footing will be much firmer – good to firm, in fact – when Los Angeles returns to Ascot for the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

The Thursday feature at Churchill Downs, race 8, runs through trainer Brad Cox, who sends Destino d’Oro out for her first start since she took a narrow defeat last October in the Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland.

Destino d’Oro and 11 other fillies and mares were entered in Thursday’s finale, a first-level allowance carded for 1 1/16 miles on grass. With the portable rail set at 36 feet only 10 can start, leaving two big longshots on the also-eligible list.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Provided Mother Nature relents and the New York Racing Association powers that be allow, turf racing hopefully resumes Thursday at Aqueduct. Following a weekend washout of turf – nine scheduled turf races were transferred to the main track on Saturday and Sunday – four of the eight races on Thursday’s program are carded for turf.

That includes a multi-conditioned allowance that drew seven stakes winners from the eight entered to run on turf. There also are two entered for the main track only.

In a span of eight days trainer Brad Cox watched both his unbeaten 3-year-old fillies go down to defeat.

Good Cheer, the Kentucky Oaks winner, won her first seven before finishing a flat fifth June 6 in the Acorn Stakes at Saratoga. Cox can’t point to anything particular besides a sloppy track that produced that dull showing.

She’s Lookin Lucky was a pretty good dirt horse. She finished fourth in the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks two summers ago and got as high as 88 on the Beyer Speed Figure scale. But her trainer, Matt Shirer, thought untapped talent remained. In 2024 he focused on turf racing with She’s Lookin Lucky, and she has turned out to be an even better grass horse.

Surface preference established, She’s Lookin Lucky, from all appearances, starts what should be a very productive 5-year-old season in the featured eighth race Wednesday at Churchill Downs.