Deputy Lass improved dramatically when she stretched out to a middle distance for the first time in a $7,000 conditional claiming race Aug. 23 and looks like the one to beat in a $12,500 claiming race for fillies and mares Friday at Northlands Park. The one-mile race drew seven horses and goes as the second of eight races. Post time for the first race is 6 p.m. Mountain.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – As the only allowance of the card, the ninth of 10 races Friday at Churchill Downs will serve as the nominal feature. But it is the preceding race, the last of five maiden races on the day, that’s likely to draw the most attention from serious fans and horseplayers.

That’s because a 2-year-old colt named Kendall’s Boy will make his second career start in the six-furlong race. On Aug. 23 at Saratoga, Kendall’s Boy finished second to the highly touted Havana, who earned an eye-popping 102 Beyer Speed Figure with his 2 3/4-length victory as a 2-5 favorite.

Work All Week led a one-two Midwest Thoroughbreds finish for trainer Roger Brueggemann in the $52,500 Tex’s Zing Stakes, beating stablemate Signsealndeliver by 1 1/4 lengths while cementing his position as the leading Illinois-bred sprinter in training. Work All Week, a 4-year-old homebred gelding by City Zip, now has won six of eight starts overall, and six of seven during 2013, his only loss coming by a nose after he dueled on a hot pace in an Arlington stakes race earlier this summer.

BOSSIER CITY, La. – Got Shades has established himself as the top 2-year-old of the Louisiana Downs meet with wins in the $50,000 Sunny’s Halo last month and the $100,000 Sunday Silence on Saturday. Now, he could be headed to Keeneland, with the long-range goal of making the Breeders’ Cup.

Trainer Danny Pish said Tuesday that Got Shades could make his next start in the Grade 3, $150,000 Bourbon, a 1 1/16-mile turf race at Keeneland on Oct. 6. It is a Win and You’re In for the $1 million BC Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 1.

Fair Grounds in New Orleans will close out its sixth season of Quarter Horse racing Thursday with the $286,560 Louisiana Quarter Horse Breeders’ Association Sale Futurity. The 350-yard dash is the richest race of a meet that was extended two dates after a threatening weather pattern led the track to cancel its opening weekend. Trials for the Sale Futurity were to have been run during the season’s first week, but were rescheduled for Aug. 23.

The trip Whatthecatdrugin endured Sunday in the Presque Isle Mile was so ridiculous that Tevis McCauley is giving his stable star a chance right back.

Whatthecatdrugin was one of nine older horses entered Tuesday for the showcase race at Kentucky Downs: the Grade 3, $400,000 Kentucky Turf Cup, which will be run Saturday at the south-central Kentucky track for the 17th time.

POMONA, Calif. – She may have been named after a convicted felon, but the honest filly Madoffwiththemoney has developed into one of the circuit’s most trustworthy California-bred sprinters.

Madoffwiththemoney races six furlongs Thursday at the Los Angeles County Fair, where the 4-year-old – named after investment swindler Bernie Madoff – is favored in the race-9 feature, a first-level optional claimer for California-bred fillies and mares.

Eight were entered in the sprint on a quiet Barretts at Fairplex card.

Sam Houston Race Park will again pack its richest stakes into a single program next year when the $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic shares a card with the Grade 3, $200,000 Connally Turf Cup on Jan. 25. The races will anchor a schedule of 20 stakes worth nearly $1.7 million during the meet, which opens Jan. 17. Sam Houston will race 32 dates through March 9.

They saved the best for first on Thursday’s card, when the featured opener is an optional claimer with third-level allowance conditions.

Seven older males were entered in the one-mile race, worth $81,000, including the David Jacobson-trained entry of Cease and Pratereo, who were both entered for the $100,000 claiming price.