SHAKOPEE, Minn. – For the first time in many years, Canterbury Park will begin its racing season Friday evening amidst optimism regarding the future of racing in Minnesota. The track has joined forces with the state’s Native American casinos in an accord that would allow changes in the betting structure and table game numbers at the racetrack while providing simulcasting at the Native-owned casinos.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Wednesday morning Ken Ramsey announced the retirement of Dean’s Kitten, winner of the Grade 2 Lane’s End in 2010 and runner-up by a nose to Cape Blanco in the Grade 1 Turf Classic last fall.

Retirement with an injured tendon – such news would be enough to devastate most owners, who might only dream of owning a horse such as Dean’s Kitten, a horse who made more than $800,000 for trainer Mike Maker.

There may be only seven entrants in Friday’s $100,000 Skipat Stakes at Pimlico, but the six-furlong event certainly has more than its share of early speed horses.

Red’s Round Table had a clear lead at the first call in three of her last five starts, and a bad stumble at the start is the only reason she wasn’t on the pace in another. Valiant Passion had control of the pace at the first call in her last two starts. And Afleet Lass was in front at the first call in her last eight starts, twice in sub-22 second opening quarter-miles.

OPELOUSAS, La. – It’s all about speed Friday night at Evangeline Downs as some of the quickest sprinters in the region will go postward in the Need for Speed Stakes. The five-furlong dash on the turf drew a field of seven and carries a $50,000 purse.

Graham Motion has three of the 10 3-year-old fillies entered in the Friday finale at Pimlico, the $100,000 Hilltop Stakes, but the English-born trainer said he may wind up running just one of them. Coup, part of an Augustin Stable duo with Appealing Cat, definitely will start to the exclusion of her stablemate, said Motion, while the third filly, Proud Pearl, will start only in the unlikely event of the 1 1/16-mile turf race being transferred to the main track.

BALTIMORE – All the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes did last year was produce the 3-year-old filly champion. Royal Delta rolled home by 2 1/2 lengths in the Preakness eve fixture for her first career stakes victory in a 2012 campaign that ended in a Breeders’ Cup win and a divisional Eclipse Award.

Inspired, who has won three of her last four starts, looks like the one to catch on Friday in the $100,000 The Very One Stakes, a five-furlong grass race for older female sprinters that drew a bulky field of 11.

Inspired will benefit by the cut back to five furlongs after fading to fourth going 5 1/2 furlongs in the Giants Causeway at Keeneland on April 21. She led from start to finish in her three prior races, all wins. She is the 2-1 favorite on the morning line of Pimlico’s Frank Carulli.

BALTIMORE – Trainer Graham Motion thought by choosing to run his Grade 1 winner Toby’s Corner in Friday’s reincarnated Pimlico Special he might be ducking some of the better horses in the handicap division.

Problem is, there appears to be so much depth to the division this year, that the Grade 3, $300,000 Pimlico Special – being run for the first time since 2008 – came up just as tough as any Grade 1 race that will be run later in the year.

Trainer King Leatherbury hopes Ben’s Cat continues his trend as a copycat.

Last year, Ben’s Cat won the Mister Diz Stakes, got roughed up when fifth in his next start, and rebounded to win the $100,000 Jim McKay Stakes on Preakness eve.

BALTIMORE – The ladies’ day theme coinciding with the Kentucky Oaks has proven wildly popular at Churchill Downs, and Pimlico is proving it’s a concept worth imitating, albeit in a somewhat different form. This will be the third year that the Lady Legends for the Cure for retired female jockeys will be run as a parimutuel race on Preakness eve, and once again the participants are champing at the proverbial bit.

“I’m very excited,” said Mary Wiley-Wagner, who won the Lady Legends last year aboard Miss Destruction. “It looks like it’s going to be a really, really good race.”