LOUISVILLE, Ky. – From the first 25 races for 2-year-olds at the Churchill Downs spring meet, horses trained by Steve Asmussen and Wesley Ward combined to win 17 of them.

So it seems fitting that Asmussen and Ward will engage in a showdown of sorts as the meet winds toward its end Saturday night. Through Friday, Asmussen had rung up 9 wins in 2-year-old races to Ward’s 8, and both have major threats in the 112th running of the Grade 3, $100,000 Bashford Manor Stakes.

Before Jack Liebau, the president of Betfair Hollywood Park, turns out the lights on the historic track just before Christmas, he has some tidying up to do. After 75 years, stuff has a tendency to pile up. Liebau has been there only for the last eight years, but it’s always the guy at the finish who’s left with the broom.

ALTOONA, Iowa – Beat the Blues, the 9-5 morning line favorite for Friday’s $100,000 Saylorville Stakes at Prairie Meadows, was not on a Wednesday flight from Louisville to Des Moines and will miss the race, which kicks off the two-card Iowa Festival of Racing.

Beat the Blues, the 2011 Saylorville champ and winner of the Grade 3 Winning Colors at Churchill Downs on May 27t, was “too sore” to get on the van to the airport from trainer Bret Calhoun’s Churchill stable.

Short Round came from far back in the field of 3-year-old Indiana-breds to win the $85,000 The Snack, one of two stakes run at Indiana Downs on Wednesday evening.

Originally scheduled for a mile on the turf, The Snack was moved to a sloppy main track and contested at a mile and 70 yards.

After overcoming a bad start, Short Round was eighth early in the field of 11. Jockey Orlando Mojica went to work on Short Round in the stretch and he got up in time to win by three-quarters of a length.

Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va., was forced to cancel its Wednesday evening card following the third race due to a thunderstorm that resulted in a power outage at the facility. The track had been scheduled to run eight races Wednesday.

Racing at Colonial Downs is scheduled to resume with Thursday’s card. First post Thursday is 6 p.m. Eastern.

Unlike last Saturday and Sunday, when no one hit the pick six at Belmont Park and a double carryover of $248,140 was the result, a series of fairly predictable results on Wednesday led to a wide distribution of riches.

With a fresh $1,984,034 diving into the pool, the pick six paid $6,152 to 229 winners who correctly tabbed the 3-8-4-10-3-10 combination of Longfor the City ($4.20), Crackerjack Jones ($2.90), Wholelottashakin ($8.90), Delightful Dawn ($8.20), Strapping Groom ($11.20), and Antone Suavey ($8.90).

AUBURN, Wash. – The speedy 4-year-old fillies Daisy Clover and Hot N Sauci headline the feature at Emerald Downs on Friday, a $12,500 claiming race for fillies and mares that have never won two races. The six-furlong feature attracted six entrants and will go as the sixth race on a seven-race program beginning at 6:45 p.m. Pacific.

Daisy Clover has yet to finish worse than second in three starts for trainer Blaine Wright, who began the week with 12 winners from 37 starters at the meeting – a strike rate of 32 percent that has made him Emerald Downs’s most efficient trainer.

Havelock remained in England after finishing 11th at 33-1 under Frankie Dettori in the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee last Saturday at Royal Ascot and likely will run back July 13 in the Group 1 July Cup, a six-furlong race at Newmarket, Churchill-based trainer Darrin Milller said.

Havelock, a multiple graded stakes winner in the United States, is in the care of Miller’s 19-year-old son, Chase, at the same yard, Abington Place, used by such well-known trainers as Michael de Kock and Jane Chapple-Hyam.

Stephanie’s Kitten, arguably the top female turf runner in North America this year, has not worked since her victory in the Grade 1 Just a Game on the June 8 Belmont Stakes undercard but continues to train forwardly at Churchill, according to trainer Wayne Catalano.

Another Grade 1 race – the July 27 Diana at Saratoga or the Aug. 17 Beverly D. at Arlington Park – is next, Catalano said.

“We were thinking about a prep in between, but it doesn’t look like we’ll do that,” he said. “We’ll just go straight into one of those big ones.”

Jimmy Creed may be favored in Saturday's Triple Bend Handicap, which has a projected field of nine, including defending champion Camp Victory as well as Centralinteligence, Comma to the Top, Cyclometer, Drill, Morning Line, Rail Trip, and Tres Borrachos.