ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Northern Passion has returned from a 10-month layoff to finish close in two graded stakes for fillies and mares here this spring, finishing fourth in the six-furlong Whimsical on the Polytrack and third in the Nassau at a mile on turf.

On Saturday, Northern Passion will be dropping in class to face Ontario-breds in the $125,000 Zadracarta Stakes and looms as the one to beat in the seven-furlong turf race for fillies and mares.

ELMONT, N.Y. - The last time My Happy Face ran a one-mile race at Belmont Park, she was part of a stirring stretch duel that she ultimately lost to Dreaming of Julia by a head in the Grade 1 Frizette last fall.

Thursday, in the one-mile Lotka Stakes, My Happy Face had to work hard to get by the pacesetting Girl Code, but once she did, My Happy Face edged clear for a 2 1/2-length victory that likely will set her up for a return to Grade 1 company in next month’s Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga.

A leading trainer at Indiana Downs in Shelbyville, Ind., has been suspended 90 days after four of his horses tested positive last year for carbazochrome, an anti-hemorrhaging drug that is often administered to horses under the belief that it can reduce bleeding in the lungs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Mike Maker-trained horses owned by Ken and Sarah Ramsey have seemed nearly unstoppable everywhere from Kentucky to New York this spring. And Saturday night in the Grade 3 Regret Stakes in the race following the Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs, fans can expect more of the same.

Kitten’s Dumplings, a 3 3/4-length winner of the Edgewood Stakes over the Churchill Downs turf course May 3, looks poised to rally past the opposition under Joel Rosario in the 1 1/8-mile turf race.

Santa Anita is planning renovations to its turf club, grandstand and stable area during the second half of the summer, track president George Haines said on Thursday.

The renovations will be conducted concurrent with the Del Mar race meeting, from July 17 to Sept. 4. Areas of the turf club will be refurbished and expanded, and the Chandelier room in the interior of the turf club will be remodeled. The track will be closed while the work is being conducted.

“The whole turf club will be renovated,” Haines said.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Willie B Awesome will start from post 6 when he makes his stakes debut in Saturday’s $100,000 Willard Proctor Memorial Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park. From trainer Walter Solis’s perspective, it was an ideal draw for the promising 2-year-old colt.

“I couldn’t ask for anything better,” Solis said.

A full brother to Willa B Awesome, the winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks in 2012, Willie B Awesome is a top contender in the Proctor, which is run over 5 1/2 furlongs.

MIAMI – Looking more like the reigning Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner and Eclipse Award champion than the horse who has been beaten a combined 26 1/2 lengths in his two starts this year, Trinniberg worked a half-mile in 46.89 seconds Thursday at Calder as he prepares for the Grade 2 Smile Sprint Handicap on July 6.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There’s nothing official about it, but the symbolism is hard to miss. The second half of the 2013 racing season in North America gets under way Saturday night with the Stephen Foster Handicap, a Grade 1 race that relegates the Triple Crown to the rearview mirror while shifting a forward focus onto the Breeders’ Cup.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Horse races can be complicated affairs, whereby handicappers can envision a number of scenarios unfolding that could lead different outcomes.

But Saturday’s night’s Grade 2, $175,000 Fleur de Lis Handicap on the Stephen Foster undercard isn’t one of those races. Champion mare Royal Delta, winner of the past two Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classics, towers over four rivals, and anything other than a runaway victory is improbable.

According to trainer Tom Amoss, Free World will have the early lead in the $200,000 Centaur Stakes on Saturday at Indiana Downs.

“There is no other way to put it, we are committed front-runners,” Amoss said. “He will make the lead and we will go from there, hopefully it won’t take too much out of him.”

There is not a lot of speed in the one-mile turf race for 3-year-olds, and Amoss knows who his chief pace rival is likely to be.