AUBURN, Wash. – Juan Gutierrez, assured of his first Emerald Downs riding title, will commence his victory lap Friday on Day 79 of the 81-day meeting. Gutierrez enters the final weekend with a 110-91 cushion over defending champion Leslie Mawing, with the other jockeys many lengths behind. Gutierrez has mounts in every race on the seven-race card, including leading contender Reliable Ema in the feature race, a $7,500 claimer for 3-year-old fillies that have never won twice.

There will be two key factors working in Z Rockstar’s favor on Friday night when he seeks the first stakes win of his career in the $50,000 Tishomingo at Remington Park in Oklahoma City.

The race shares a card with the $50,000 Te Ata, both at seven furlongs and both restricted to 3-year-olds bred in Oklahoma. The names of the races relate to the Chickasaw Nation, which through its subsidiary of Global Gaming owns Remington Park.

POMONA, Calif. – Bob Baffert will try to knock down two divisions of the Bangles and Beads Stakes on Friday at Fairplex Park, where Candrea and American Lady are favored in respective halves of the filly-and-mare sprint stakes.

Candrea faces Ninth Infantry in race 8; American Lady meets True Way of Grace in race 10. While neither Baffert trainee is a standout, their attributes are enough for a $50,000 stakes such as the 6 1/2-furlong Bangles and Beads.

Martin Pedroza rides Candrea, the 5-2 favorite seeking to end a six-race losing streak that has lasted one year.

BOSSIER CITY, La. – Some of the region’s finest young horses will descend on Louisiana Downs this Saturday for what has been billed as the “Southern Showcase.” The lineup includes the $50,000 Razorback and $50,000 Lady Razorback futurities for Arkansas-breds at six furlongs; two divisions of the seven-furlong Louisiana Stallion Stakes for 2-year-olds that are each worth $100,000; and two stakes for Louisiana-bred sales graduates at a mile on turf, the $150,000 Elge Rasberry for 3-year-old fillies and the $150,000 A.L. “Red” Erwin for 3-year-olds.

Salsa Express will be trying for her third straight victory – and will likely get it – when she runs in a second-level optional $30,000 claiming race at Northlands Park on Friday. The six-furlong feature for fillies and mares drew six horses and will go as the fourth race.

Redeemed, a multiple graded stakes winner this year who was being pointed to the Breeders’ Cup Marathon, and Boys At Tosconova, who won the Grade 1 Hopeful in 2010, have been retired, their owner announced on Wednesday.

Redeemed, a 4-year-old Virginia-bred son of Include, has a torn tendon in his right foreleg, owner Samantha Siegel said. Meanwhile, Boys At Tosconova simply was not training like he needed to be competitive, Siegel said.

Siegel indicated she would attempt to find homes to stand both as stallions.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Controversy has erupted in the wake of last Saturday’s Natalma Stakes here at Woodbine, which was won by Spring Venture.

The Grade 2 Natalma, for 2-year-old fillies at one mile on the turf, is a Win and You’re In race for the Grade 1, $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

Carolyn Costigan, trainer of third-place finisher Nancy O, has lodged an appeal, alleging interference at the start by the winner.

They once were commonplace, but in these difficult times at Turfway Park a third-level allowance race is about as rare as a pile of sandy loam at the northern Kentucky track. Nonetheless, a third-level allowance filled with six filly-mare sprinters and, voila, a worthy feature is in place for the 11-race Friday card.

Two daughters of the useful speed sire Five Star Day appear to be the prime contenders in the race, the 10th, which carries a $27,000 purse, half of it reserved for horses eligible to the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Four of the six horses in Friday’s Woodbine headliner are stakes winners, including 2009 Queen’s Plate winner Eye of the Leopard, who will switch from turf to Polytrack in the 1 1/16-mile allowance prep for the Durham Cup Stakes.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Hollywood Hit, Canada’s champion sprinter of 2010, is ineligible to race in Ontario for a period of 90 days, Sept. 15 through Dec. 13, after testing positive for the Class 3 drug acepromazine, a tranquilizer.

Trained by Terry Jordan for owner Peter Redekop, Hollywood Hit had been an impressive winner of a six-furlong allowance race here at Woodbine on Sept. 7, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 104 for his 1:08.30 clocking, which was just a tick off the 1:08.16 track record.