With a clear path to a lucrative casino license ahead, Suffolk Downs opens its live racing season Saturday with an emphasis on community outreach and an appearance by their homegrown celebrity former track announcer.

Federation, who has picked up minor pieces of the purse in back-to-back Grade 3 stakes this season, appears to hold a class advantage over her eight opponents in Saturday’s first non-overnight stakes of the season at Delaware Park, the $75,000 John Rooney Memorial for fillies and mares.

The 4-year-old Federation, an English import now based at Belmont Park with trainer Christophe Clement, began her United States career with three starts last winter at Tampa Bay Downs, where she won back-to-back races and then finished second, beaten 1 3/4 lengths, in the Grade 3 HIllsborough.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The $150,000 Californian Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday is essentially a race for leadership of the circuit’s older male division.

Going into the race, it is a vacant position.

Game On Dude won the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita in February, but was 12th in Dubai World Cup in March. The Californian Stakes over 1 1/8 miles is his first start since that race.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – You don’t have to look long to identify the speediest of the speed horses in the $60,000 John J. Reilly Handicap on Saturday at Monmouth Park.

Assuming a clean break, that role falls to The Hunk in the annual early-season showcase for New Jersey-breds going six furlongs.

The latest renewal drew 11. The Hunk, 4-3-0 in 7 starts at Monmouth, has post 3 with Carlos Marquez, Jr. set to ride the high weight at 123 pounds.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Strait of Dover, who would have been a solid choice here in Sunday’s Plate Trial, now will be heading straight to the Queen’s Plate.

“We pulled another blood on him [Friday] morning, and it was not a whole lot better,” said trainer Danny Vella, who had been put on alert when the results of a blood test on Thursday were not satisfactory. “It looks like he’s trying to come down with something.

“We’ll back off him for a week, and he’ll be fine. He’ll have two big works before the Plate.”

An off-season construction project has hopefully solved two problems that have discouraged patrons from attending the races at Colonial Downs each summer.

By shifting the focus of the facility’s light standards from the 1  1/4-mile dirt track, where the lights were primarily used for harness racing in the fall, to the turf course, where 80 percent of Colonial’s Thoroughbred races are run, the Virginia track can avoid running most of its eight-week, 32-date season during the day, when oppressive heat and traffic jams from beachgoers on Interstate 64 were major drawbacks to fans.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – At some point, Good Deed might feel like she’s surrounded by 5-year-old mares – unless, of course, she can just flat outrun them.

As a 3-year-old filly trying older mares for the first time Saturday night in the Winning Colors Stakes at Churchill Downs, Good Deed will face a trio of Bret Calhoun-trained 5-year-olds – Gleaming, Beat the Blues, and Speedacious – in what shapes up as an intriguing renewal of the six-furlong race.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Dixie Strike, an impressive winner of the Grade 3 Selene Stakes over 1 1/16 miles here May 13, has been made the 6-5 morning-line favorite for Sunday’s $500,000 Woodbine Oaks.

A field of nine was announced at the post-position draw here Thursday for the Woodbine Oaks, a 1 1/8-mile race for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies.

Dixie Strike, who will be ridden by Patrick Husbands, is one of three Woodbine Oaks entrants conditioned by Mark Casse, along with Northern Passion and Black Bird Rock.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Devil in Disguise and Clear the Runway look like the main players in the $50,000 River Rock Casino for 3-year-olds at Hastings Saturday. The 1 1/16-mile feature drew six horses and goes as the seventh race. Post time for the first race is 1:50 p.m. Pacific.

The River Rock is the first middle-distance stakes race for 3-year-olds at Hastings this year and Devil in Disguise figures to relish the added distance.

After 12 days of racing there is a close race developing for leading trainer at Northlands Park. Greg Tracy, Robertino Diodoro and Ron Grieves are all tied with seven wins apiece.

Grieves could move to the lead on Saturday with three horses entered compared to one for Diodoro and none for Tracy. All three horses Grieves entered, Trust in Time in the third, Cruzenforchicks in the sixth, and Rum Chase in the seventh, look very live.