SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – St. John’s River may not have the résumé that It’s Tricky and Plum Pretty do, but she has the talent, late kick, and pedigree to suggest she could upset those two in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga.

VIDEO: Saratoga updates, Alabama preview | Replays of contenders' past races »

SHAKOPEE, Minn. – The rescheduled HBPA Mile will finally be run Saturday at Canterbury Park. The $35,000 race for older fillies and mares, twice a victim to the government shutdown, is a mile turf race.

The top contenders all have speed, as do several others, and the wide-open contest stands to go to the jockey who can best ration his mount’s energy.

DEL MAR, Calif. – To achieve a record that includes four stakes wins this year, Cambina has rallied from the back of a field to reach the front in races such as the Grade 2 Providencia Stakes at Santa Anita in April and the Grade 1 American Oaks at Hollywood Park last month.

Such a style produces dramatic finishes – in victory and defeat. Cambina was third in two stakes at Hollywood Park in the spring, closing well in both, and overcame trouble in the stretch to win the American Oaks in a dead heat with Nereid.

Tim Scaravilli

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio  – Catlaunch, who surpassed $1  million in earnings with his victory in the George Lewis Memorial here at Thistledown on July  16, will go for his fifth consecutive stakes win and try to stay perfect on the year when he faces eight Ohio-bred rivals in the $50,000 Honey Jay Stakes on Saturday,

Catlaunch is a 10-year-old gelding owned by his breeders, Scioto Farm, and trained by Ivan Vazquez. He has won 38 of his 87 career starts and earned $1,011,844.

EDMONTON, Alberta – Hastings-based Senor Rojo, Summer Song, and Belle Evangeline have an excellent chance of sweeping the three stakes races that support the Grade 3, $300,000 Canadian Derby at Northlands Park on Saturday.

Senor Rojo will have to run his best race to win what looks like a very competitive renewal of the $75,000 Speed to Spare. Summer Song will be either the first or second choice in the $75,000 Edmonton Distaff Handicap, and Belle Evangeline appears to be standout in the $50,000 Sonoma Handicap for 3-year-old fillies.

Chuck Zacney is an East Coast-based businessman best known as a co-owner of champion Afleet Alex. But he actually got his start in racing with Louisiana-breds, and on Saturday will be active on the Louisiana Cup card at Louisiana Downs. Zacney races Wildrally, who will start as a top contender in the $100,000 Turf Classic. It is the main event on a program of eight statebred stakes worth $570,000.

Trainer Cody Joiner has never had a three-day span similar to last weekend when he won six races with eight starters at Los Alamitos.

Joiner, 31, has been training on his own in earnest for the last two years, after assisting his father, Mike, and training a few horses of his own since 2005. Along the way, Joiner had won two races on the same weekend a few times, but never experienced such a level of success.

The inaugural Santa Anita autumn meeting, which runs from Sept. 30 to Nov. 6, has a list of familiar names among its 22 stakes, as the Arcadia, Calif., track takes over Southern California’s fall dates from the Oak Tree Racing Association.

The autumn meeting’s first weekend, Oct. 1-2, includes five Grade 1 races that are part of the Breeders’ Cup’s Challenge series offering a fees-paid berth to the winner for Breeders’ Cup races at Churchill Downs in November. Those races are the Goodwood, Lady’s Secret, Norfolk, Oak Leaf, and Yellow Ribbon stakes.

EDMONTON, Alberta – A seemingly well-matched field of 12 3-year-olds will line up in the Grade 3, $300,000 Canadian Derby at Northlands Park on Saturday. But the grueling 1 3/8-mile distance going around four turns should separate the contenders from the pretenders. The 10 colts and geldings in the field will carry 126 pound, five pounds more than the two fillies, Embellished and Lemon Loaf.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario — Two fillies who disappointed on the grass in the Wonder Where Stakes, Bear It’s Time and Niigon’s Touch, will both go back to the Polytrack on Saturday at Woodbine in the $125,000 Eternal Search Stakes.

Bear It’s Time should be favored in the 11/16-mile event for Ontario-sired 3-year-old fillies. She aired in the seven-furlong Lady Angela Stakes in her season opener May 23, but was ineffective 13 days later in the Woodbine Oaks, in which she pressed a slow pace before fading to sixth.