[bc_video_id:253505:]ETOBICOKE, Ontario – It certainly wasn’t surprising when Inglorious took to the turf like a duck to water in her season opener at Keeneland. She will try a mile over Woodbine’s expansive course Saturday in the Grade 2, $300,000 Nassau Stakes.

Inglorious’s brilliant 2011 campaign nearly earned her Canadian Horse of the Year honors. She swept the La Lorgnette Stakes and Woodbine Oaks in the spring, and then beat the boys convincingly in the Queen’s Plate, which helped her to clinch champion 3-year-old filly honors.

ELMONT, N.Y. – The Belmont Stakes nearly lost its marquee player Thursday morning when a different horse got loose and nearly ran into Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I’ll Have Another during training hours at Belmont Park.

I’ll Have Another was not touched by the loose horse and was able to complete his normal training regimen without issue, but it created some anxious moments for trainer Doug O’Neill.

ALBANY, Calif. – Trainer Andy Mathis is aware there could be a contentious pace in the $100,000 Campanile on Saturday at Golden Gate Fields, but he’s willing to throw down a challenge to his six rivals on behalf of his starter in the one-mile turf race, Oh Molly Brannigan.

“We’re going for the lead,” Mathis said, adding he was going to tell jockey Juan Hernandez “to go for it until you get it.”

“I’d rather go 46 and not win than back off another horse and not win,” Mathis said.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Alpha, one of just four graded stakes winners among the dozen 3-year-olds being pointed to the June 9 Belmont Stakes, will miss the race after developing a temperature earlier in the week, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said Thursday morning.

MIAMI – Calder Racecourse will offer pick-six wager with a low takeout of 19 percent beginning Friday.

The new wager, called the Mega 6, is a 10-cent wager that will encompass the last six races of each racing card offered during both the Calder and Tropical at Calder meetings, which run through Nov. 30.  The bet is identical to the Rainbow 6, which proved to be a success during each of the past two Gulfstream Park meetings. The jackpot is paid out only if a single winning combination exists.

Jockey Mario Gutierrez is taking this week off to spend time in Western Canada before traveling to New York to ride Triple Crown hopeful I’ll Have Another in the Belmont Stakes on June 9.

Gutierrez rode at Hollywood Park on Monday, but is not booked to ride this week, according to his agent, Ivan Puhich. Gutierrez rode at Hastings Park in Vancouver until last October and has traveled there to visit friends this week, Puhich said.

“He’ll be leaving Canada and he’ll be going straight to New York,” Puhich said Wednesday.

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.