If Fovee runs back to her dazzling comeback win last month, Saturday night’s Grade 1, $150,000 Mildred Vessels Memorial Handicap for Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos could turn into a race for second. In all, a field of 10 fillies and mares will start in the 400-yard dash that provides its winner with a berth into the Grade  1, $750,000 Champion of Champions.

AUBURN, Wash. – Underdogs will be plentiful Sunday at Emerald Downs as horsemen give chase to $215,000 in purse money being offered in six Washington Cup stakes races. The races are restricted to horses foaled in Washington or sired by stallions standing in the state, and with a limited number of stakes-caliber runners to draw from, the fields are stacked with maidens, erstwhile claimers, and other outsiders.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Dabnabit goes for a sweep of the statebred sprint stakes, while Who’s the Cowboy, a recent entrant into the millionaire’s club, will need every bit of his back class in the richest event on the day as Monmouth Park presents the ninth annual New Jersey Thoroughbred Festival on Saturday.

The festival salutes the state’s breeding program, with 12 races exclusively for New Jersey-breds. A trio of handicaps top the program: the $100,000 Charles Hesse III and a pair of $60,000 events, the New Jersey Breeders and the Jersey Girl Handicap.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Northern Causeway will get a well-deserved rest after his gutsy win in the Grade 3, $200,000 British Columbia Derby at Hastings last Sunday, according to owner Rozamund Barclay.

“We’re going to take him back to Golden Gate and see how he’s doing,” Barclay said. “It has been a busy month for him, and we just want to give him some time to make sure he’s OK.”

The purses for the 12-race Saturday card at Parx Racing are so outrageous that perhaps only the $250,000 being offered for the feature race, the President’s Cup, seems to be in line.

It’s Pennsylvania Owners’ Appreciation Day at the suburban Philadelphia racino, with purses purposely inflated so as to reward horse owners loyal to the local program. The first race on the card is a $5,000 claiming race with a $40,000 purse – and it only gets more obscene from there, with a $90,000 maiden race and a $94,000 allowance on tap later.

Being good enough to win a second-level turf allowance at Saratoga should translate into being good enough to win a $50,000 stakes at Kentucky Downs.

Shouldn’t it?

“You’d think so,” said Jimmy Baker, who Saturday will be hoping to see Bergerac make that very transition.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine will be offering a turf stakes triple header of the $1 million Woodbine Mile, $500,000 Northern Dancer and $300,000 Canadian on Sunday. And, perhaps not surprisingly considering their local histories, the only trainers with starters in all three races are Mark Frostad and Roger Attfield.

Frostad’s contestants will be Grand Adventure in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile, Hotep in the Grade 1 Northern Dancer, and Stars to Shine, Forest Uproar, and Magic Broomstick in the Grade 2 Canadian.

Racing Secretary Jason Teague has every right to be pleased with how entries went for Alberta Fall Classic Day this Saturday at Northlands Park.

“We were thrilled to see such great support,” he said. “The betting public is going to love the field sizes and the competitiveness of the races.”

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Courageous Cat, winner of the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile over Hollywood Park’s turf course on July 2, has been made the 3-1 favorite for Sunday’s 15th running of the Woodbine Mile.

MIAMI – Midnight Serenade is a Florida-bred but unfortunately for his connections, trainer Steve DiMauro and owner-breeder Leanne Robbins, the 2-year-old gelding is not eligible for the Florida Stallion Series. That makes Saturday’s $100,000 Foolish Pleasure Stakes the main goal at the moment for the steadily improving Midnight Serenade, who figures to be the slight favorite against five well-matched rivals in the first of four stakes events on Calder’s 12-race Festival of the Sun Preview program.