OPELOUSAS, La. – Trainer Pat Devereux doesn’t hold all the cards in Friday night’s $50,000 Acadiana Stakes at Evangeline Downs, but he has a strong hand nonetheless as he sends out Little Miss Protocol and Coteau Kitten in the seven-furlong headliner. Devereux’s pair of stakes winners, who will be coupled as an entry as each is owned by Coteau Grove Farms, will take on eight other 3-year-old Louisiana-bred fillies in this year’s strong renewal of the Acadiana.

Danzing Tribal will try to get back on track when he runs in a $22,000 claiming race at Northlands Park on Friday. The six-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up drew six horses and goes as race 7 on an eight-race card that begins at 6 p.m. Mountain.

Danzing Tribal had his four-race winning streak snapped in his first start at Northlands when he ran in a in a 3 1/2-furlong, optional $40,000 claiming race May 12. Trained by Robertino Diodoro, Danzing Tribal might not have cared for the short distance and he should appreciate the longer distance with the drop in class.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Bret Calhoun has a total of three horses entered in the three Grade 3, $100,000 stakes that Churchill Downs has carded for Saturday night, the first of three Downs After Dark programs in June.

One horse for each stakes, right? Uh, not quite. Calhoun has entered three of the eight filly-mares sprinters in the first of those races, the Winning Colors Stakes, and said Wednesday after entries were drawn that he fully intends to run all three: Gleaming, Beat the Blues, and Speedacious.

At Belmont Park on Wednesday, Guyana Star Dweej did little to enhance his Belmont Stakes credentials when he was pulled up by jockey Eddie Castro in the final sixteenth of a mile of what was to be a five-furlong workout.

Daily Racing Form clocked Guyana Star Dweej in splits of 12.57 seconds, 24.70, and 37.39 for three furlongs. Inside the sixteenth pole, however, Castro pulled him up, and he jogged across the wire. Belmont Park clockers credited Guyana Star Dweej with a half-mile time of 50.03.

Jockey Dale Beckner reached a personal milestone with a victory number 1,000 on Tuesday evening at Presque Isle Downs aboard Pompous Time ($22.60) for trainer John Bourke. The 39 year-old Spokane, Wash., native won the Eclipse Award for outstanding apprentice rider in 1994. Beckner has suffered several setbacks from injuries in his career, most recently in August 2009 when he suffered muliple facial fractures when injured in a spill locally. Beckner’s mount Private Exchange broke down in the first race on August 28 and he was trampled by a trailing horse.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Game On Dude, runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs last November, will make his first start since a 12th in the Dubai World Cup in Saturday’s $150,000 Californian Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park.

Trainer Bob Baffert finalized his plans after watching Game On Dude work seven furlongs in 1:24 at Santa Anita last Sunday, the horse’s fifth workout since returning to training following the Dubai World Cup on March 31. Baffert said he timed Game On Dude galloping out a mile in 1:37.

AUBURN, Wash. – Bob Meeking has been saddling horses since the year 1947 BC – Before Citation – in a rollicking training career spanning parts of eight decades. Still going strong at 83, he has been witness to four Triple Crown winners since taking out his first trainer’s license. He would like nothing more than to see I’ll Have Another make it five with a victory a week from Saturday in the Belmont Stakes.

The time has arrived, Patrice Wolfson said Wednesday, to pass the Triple Crown torch. Wolfson and her late husband, Lou, owned the last Triple Crown winner, Affirmed, who swept the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes in 1978. The torch has been in her hands so long, she might have third-degree burns.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – When Rich Papiese, the principal in Midwest Thoroughbreds, announced that he would be stabling his Chicago string trained by Roger Brueggemann at Hawthorne this summer, he asserted that Midwest would be as active as any owner at Arlington Park despite not keeping horses on the grounds. And Papiese has been true to his word. Through Monday’s races, Midwest has sent out more runners (33) and won more races (6) than any other Arlington owner, and the Midwest-Brueggemann connection has horses entered in all three allowances races on the Friday program here.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Sunlight Sonata, who was pulled up in a stakes three weeks ago but came back none the worse for wear, is the one to beat in Friday’s featured optional claiming sprint scheduled for the inner turf at six furlongs.

After a wire-to-wire win over maiden turf sprinters in her seasonal bow last year, Sunlight Sonata raced competitively in three stakes starts, among them the Lake George, in which she set the pace against multiple stakes-winning stablemate Winter Memories.