HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Now I Know will put her 5-for-5 record up against Breeders’ Cup alum Rocket Twentyone on Saturday in a righteous renewal of the $50,000 Dixie Belle at Oaklawn Park. Both horses are Grade 3 winners, and the strength of their form makes the six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies a real first look at potential starters for the meet’s biggest prize for the division, the $300,000 Fantasy.

“I think it’s a very good race for this time of the year,” Tom Howard, the trainer of Rocket Twentyone, said of the Dixie Belle.

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission has approved a Prairie Meadows Quarter Horse meet that will include the Bank of America Challenge Championships on Oct. 27.

The commission on Thursday approved a 27-day quarter horse meet that will run Aug. 18 from Oct. 27.

The Challenge Championships, with six races worth more than $1 million combined, are Quarter Horse racing’s version of the Breeders’ Cup Horses earn starting berths by winning qualifying races across the United States, as well as in Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.

HALLANDLAE BEACH, Fla. – Jackson Bend, whose meteoric rise to the top of the sprint division in 2011 ended with a third-place finish as the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, starts the new year going a mile in Saturday’s $100,000 Hal’s Hope at Gulfstream Park. The Grade 3 Hal’s Hope serves as a potential stepping-stone to the Grade 1 Donn Handicap on Feb. 11.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Though he is based in Southern California, Prayer for Relief was a road warrior in 2011, traveling to Iowa, West Virginia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, which resulted in victories in three derbies, and a whole mess of frequent-flyer points. He is back home now, and will launch his 2012 campaign on Saturday in the Grade 2, $150,000 San Fernando Stakes, which will mark his first start at the track where he regularly trains, Santa Anita.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Scooter Dickey will kill two birds with one stone when he tries his Grade 1 winner Flat Out on the grass for the first time Saturday in Gulfstream Park’s $100,000 Fort Lauderdale.

There are no real stars in Saturday’s $100,000 California Derby at Golden Gate Fields, which means it’s hard to tell if the race will produce serious contenders for the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby on Feb. 18. But from a betting perspective, just about any one of the seven 3-year-olds signed up for the 1 1/16-mile Tapeta race could jump up and win.

OLDSMAR, Fla. – A group of 10 aspiring 3-year-olds will attempt to pass their first test on a road that could lead to the Tampa Bay Derby when they go postward in Saturday’s $100,000 Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.

The Pasco is co-featured on the card with the $100,000 Gasparilla Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. Both races are seven furlongs.

After chasing the likes of Acclamation, Regally Ready, Jeranimo, and Caracortado in Southern California, Leroy’s Dynameaux should relish the opportunity to see no such graded stakes winners in Saturday’s $75,000 Cotton Fitzsimmons Handicap at Turf Paradise. The one-mile grass event drew a field of 10, including defending champion All Saint.

A handful of fillies and mares in the $50,000 Wishing Well Stakes at Turfway Park are entered off sharp last races, but one who isn’t could emerge a major contender anyway: Lunar Mist, whose owner, Jerry Jamgotchian, paid a $2,500 supplementary fee just to make the gray mare eligible for the six-furlong Polytrack race.

Lunar Mist has not raced in more than five months, but was good enough to win a turf allowance at Santa Anita and a small stakes at Mountaineer earlier in 2011.

For 37 years, Terry Wallace was the voice of Oaklawn Park, the historic track in the old Arkansas spa and gambling town of Hot Springs, where fans still flock to the races. The crowd on the apron can’t easily follow the live action, and the voice of the track announcer remains a primary guide, the sound of authority.