Sweet Little Sleet, winner of half of her six starts this year, looks to add to her string of recent successes as she heads a small but well-qualified group in Saturday night's Tellike Stakes at Evangeline Downs. The six filly and mare sprinters are set to go five furlongs on the turf in quest of the $50,000 purse.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Heading into May of last year, Distorted Love had nothing more than a maiden win to her credit, and a 1-for-18 record at that.

Twelve months later, her form is far superior, having added two more wins and two stakes placings, including a runner-up finish in the Grade 3 Sixty Sails at Hawthorne on April 21.

ALTOONA, Iowa – Iowa’s best 3-year-olds come to the fore Saturday evening as Prairie Meadows runs the co-featured $60,000-added Bob Bryant Stakes, for fillies, and the $60,000-added Gray’s Lake, for colts and geldings. Both races will be contested over six furlongs.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. – Opening weekend at Canterbury Park will feature the first stakes of the season Saturday as Minnesota-breds head postward in the 10,000 Lakes Stakes for colts and geldings and the Lady Slipper for fillies and mares. Both races carry a purse of $35,000 and will be run at six furlongs over the main track.

Bizet, the 3-1 morning-line favorite, heads the field in the 10,000 Lakes. Bizet has been remarkably consistent, hitting the board in every race over the strip last season – including three stakes races – but he has not visited the winner’s circle since July 2010.

Trainer Patrick Biancone was quite succinct when asked what has impressed him most about the 3-year-old Innocent Man, who has won his first two career starts.

“He’s fast,” Biancone said.

After two front-running scores at Santa Anita, Innocent Man will make his stakes debut in Saturday’s $100,000 Chick Lang Stakes at Pimlico going six furlongs.

Richard Dutrow Jr., trainer of 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown, will thrust himself into the national spotlight again on Saturday when he brings the 20-1 longshot Zetterholm to Pimlico for the 137th Preakness Stakes.

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Sheldon Russell had never experienced anything like the Kentucky Derby before, and the 24-year-old jockey doesn’t just mean the adrenaline rush he got from riding in the world’s most famous horse race.

“I’ve never had the dirt sting like that,” said Russell, who rode Done Talking to a 14th-place finish two weeks ago at Churchill Downs. “It had to affect the horse, too.”

Bob Baffert did not get in town in time to see an Orioles game this week, but he will still root, root, root for the home team on Saturday at Pimlico, when he sends out Awesomemundo, owned by his wife Jill, in the Grade 3, $100,000 Allaire DuPont Distaff for older fillies and mares.

BALTIMORE – If pace does indeed make the race – as many are insisting will be the case Saturday with Bodemeister in the Preakness – then Chad Brown has a viable excuse for the disappointing last start from one of his stable stars, Zagora.

Zagora, a Grade 1 winner and earner of $868,589, was never a threat in finishing fifth as the favorite behind wire-to-wire winner Daisy Devine last month in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The $50,000 Ross McLeod at Hastings on Saturday drew a strong field of 3-year-old fillies, including the sensational Claresmiezie. The race isn’t the reason officials at Hastings are expecting the largest crowd in years to turn out, however.