ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Leading trainer Mark Casse will spring into action Saturday at Woodbine, when he runs Spring in the Air and Spring Venture in the $250,000 Natalma Stakes.

The Grade 2 turf route for 2-year-old fillies is an important Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In event, with the winner earning a fees-paid trip to the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf in November at Santa Anita. The Natalma has produced the last two BC Juvenile Fillies Turf winners, More Than Real, who finished second in the Natalma, and Stephanie’s Kitten, who was third in the Natalma.

Lon Wiggins won the first graded stakes of his training career at Arlington last Saturday, when Gold Edge captured the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Lassie by a neck, her third win from three starts this summer. The win was satisfying for Wiggins. Gold Edge is a 2-year-old filly with more than her fair share of quirks. Wiggins and his barn patiently have helped Gold Edge through them, and the filly has prospered.

But just as Wiggins, 43, has developed the most talented horse he’s ever trained, she is on the verge of leaving him.

POMONA, Calif. – Order was restored Wednesday evening at Los Angeles County Fair, where the pick six that began with a $214,764 triple carryover finally was hit.

Bettors poured $1,165,895 into the pick six, which returned $25,817.80 to 32 winning tickets.

While form settled on the twilight card, the Fairplex jockey colony went into disarray. Martin Pedroza, the track’s all-time leader with 691 wins, went down in a spill in race 7 and was transported to Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center for X-rays.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Nates Mineshaft, who hasn’t raced since a close third-place finish in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster on June 16, is back in steady training. He posted a three-furlong workout Sept. 5 at Arlington, and is being pointed to the $500,000 Hawthorne Gold Cup on Oct. 8.

“We gave him a little freshener during the heat of the summer,” said trainer Austin Smith. “He seems to be doing all right. He’s a pretty cool character.”

Shackleford took a big step toward getting back to the races by breezing a bullet half-mile in 46.60 seconds Tuesday morning at Churchill Downs. The 4-year-old colt had not breezed since coming down with a minor illness, forcing him to be scratched as the morning-line favorite from the Sept. 1 Forego at Saratoga.

“He’s back doing good again,” said trainer Dale Romans. “That little setback we had is behind us.”

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Earlier this month, Keeneland-based trainer Phil Oliver invaded Arlington Park with a relatively unknown 4-year-old gelding and took home first money in the Grade 3 Washington Park Handicap when Middie won in a romp at odds of 14-1. This weekend, it is Vicki Oliver, Phil’s wife, who is coming to Chicago to try a graded stakes. Bettors should be so lucky to get anything close to 14-1 on Rare Event, Oliver’s entrant in Saturday’s Grade  3, $175,000 Pucker Up Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.

One thing La Cloche has in common with her Grade 1-winning younger sister Winter Memories is a fondness for the turf courses at Belmont Park. Saturday, La Cloche returns to her preferred surface when she faces eight opponents in the Grade 3, $150,000 Noble Damsel Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile.

ELMONT, N.Y. – What looked to be the ideal spot for Karlovy Vary turned out to be anything but when she came out of her third-place finish in the Nani Rose Stakes on July 29 at Saratoga with a significant cut to the cannon bone of her right foreleg, an injury that could have been a lot worse.

“We got lucky,” trainer Rusty Arnold said. “It missed the suspensory by a quarter of an inch.”

AUBURN, Wash. – While it’s not the feature race, and the purse is just $4,600, the first race at Emerald Downs on Friday night could be the most entertaining race on the card. An eclectic group of six $7,500 claimers – three Thoroughbreds, three Quarter Horses – will compete over 870 yards, the first such race of the meeting and just the fifth race for Quarter Horses this summer as Emerald winds toward the end of its 81-day meeting Sept. 23.

The $50,000 Remington Park Turf Sprint for Oklahoma-breds on Friday night is a simple read: Conkigo is the speed of the race. He established himself as such with a front-running win in the $49,000 allowance prep for the five-furlong stakes Aug. 24. It came one start after Conkigo wired open-company rivals in an optional $20,000 claiming sprint at Will Rogers Downs.

“He is best going to the front,” said Martin Lozano, who trains Conkigo for Gary Owens.