AUBURN, Wash. – With the Emerald Derby fast approaching, what began as a 3-year-old division teeming with Derby prospects has been whittled to a select few. Couldabenthewhisky, the top 2-year-old at Emerald Downs last summer, will be among the leading contenders when the Derby is renewed for the 74th time Aug. 14, but the favorite’s role likely will fall to Zayda. Blaine Wright, who trains Zayda for owner Heidi Nelson, says he’s comfortable wearing the bull’s-eye.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Jockey Mike Smith will ride 3-5 favorite Joker Face in a one-mile match race against his former fiancée, Chantal Sutherland, on Sunday.

Dubbed the Battle of the Exes, the $31,000 race will be run as the third or fourth on Sunday’s program.

The match race features two maiden claimers who will be making their first starts of the meeting.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Mike Puype calls Saturday’s Grade 1 Test a “r é sum é race” and one he and the connections of likely favorite Turbulent Descent “have wanted all along.” To get it, however, Turbulent Descent will have to beat eight other talented 3-year-old fillies, including Her Smile, who is coming off the best performance of her career to win the Grade 1 Prioress five weeks earlier.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Killer Graces seems to have an impatient side.

After she won her second stakes of her three-race career in the Landaluce Stakes at Hollywood Park on July 16, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer envisioned waiting for the $250,000 Del Mar Debutante on Sept. 5.

Killer Graces wants to do more, and is entered in Friday’s $150,000 Sorrento Stakes at Del Mar. The Grade 3 Sorrento is run over 6 1/2 furlongs for 2-year-old fillies and is a key prep for the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante.

“She’s coming out of her skin,” said Dan Ward, Hollendorfer’s assistant.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Given how well Bearpath ran in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer Invitational here last summer, no one would have been surprised had trainer Ian Wilkes pointed the 5-year-old Dynaformer gelding to that same race this year.

But Wilkes has set his sights somewhat lower, electing to run Bearpath in Friday’s $75,000 John’s Call Stakes, which drew a competitive, if not accomplished, field of 12. The John’s Call, run at 1 5/8 miles over the Mellon Turf course, will go as the seventh on a nine-race program that begins at 1 p.m.

BOSSIER CITY, La. – The first Super Saturday of the season is on tap this weekend at Louisiana Downs with the $100,000 Prelude Stakes for 3-year-olds anchoring a four-stakes program. The other stakes on the card, all scheduled for the grass, are the $50,000 Sunny’s Halo for 2-year-olds at 7 1/2 furlongs; the $50,000 Donnie Wilhite for 2-year-old fillies, also at 7 1/2 furlongs; and the $50,000 Barksdale at a mile for 3-year-olds and upward.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Roger Attfield has trained a record eight winners of the Breeders’ Stakes, the 1 1/2-mile turf race that is the final leg of the Canadian Triple Crown and will be run here at Woodbine on Sunday,

Attfield has won the Breeders’ with standouts With Approval, Izvestia, and Peteski, all of whom were completing sweeps of the series for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.

He has won the Breeders’ with the fillies Carotene, Free Vacation, Pinafore Park, and Sweetest Thing.

Pennsylvania-breds will take center stage Friday night at Penn National with a pair of $75,000 turf events.

COLUMBUS, Neb. – Sookie’s Kookies will try to extend her three-race win streak when a field of eight 3-year-old fillies goes six furlongs in the $10,000-added Inaugural Stakes to start out the second weekend of racing at Columbus on Friday night.

Last weekend was for the 3-year-olds in the Haskell and Jim Dandy. Now the older males enter the spotlight in the Whitney Invitational this Saturday at Saratoga. Five of the top 10 horses in Mike Watchmaker's latest rankings were included in the 11-horse draw: Tizway, Mission Impazible, Apart, Rail Trip, and Friend Or Foe.