Trainer Cindy Krasner is hoping it is Wando Woman’s time to shine when she runs in the $50,000 Vancouver Sun for fillies and mares at Hastings on Saturday. Wando Woman was a late bloomer for Krasner as a 3-year-old last year, but once she figured it out, she became one of the top sophomore fillies in Western Canada.

By the end of January, Snitcher was an exhausted Quarter Horse.

He had two minor stakes wins to show for his 2010 campaign at Los Alamitos, but had failed to win a major race. After a dull sixth in a trial for the Los Alamitos Winter Championship on Jan. 29, trainer Adan Farias shipped the gelding to a local farm.

ALTOONA, Iowa – With Friday evening’s emphasis on sprinters, the Iowa Festival of Racing at Prairie Meadows kicks off with a pair of six-furlong stakes, the $125,000 Iowa Sprint Handicap and the $100,000 Saylorville.

The card also includes the $100,000 Iowa Distaff at 1 1/16 miles. The festival will conclude with three more stakes Saturday evening, topped by the Grade 3, $300,000 Cornhusker Handicap.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – While Sunday’s Queen’s Plate will be getting almost all of the headlines the most interesting stakes race run here this weekend well may be Saturday’s King Edward.

The field of 11 for the King Edward, a one-mile turf race that offers Grade 2 status and a purse of $250,000, features a number of proven Grade 1 performers, including Fifty Proof, Grand Adventure, Society’s Chairman, and Workin for Hops.

And then there are the up-and-comers, a group that includes the intriguing pair of Artic Fern and Court of the Realm

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The long-awaited return of 2009 Grade 1 Hopeful winner Dublin, unraced since finishing fifth in last year’s Preakness, has been delayed a little longer.

Entered in Friday night’s $76,600 Kelly’s Landing overnight stakes at Churchill Downs, Dublin will be scratched and pointed to another race yet to be determined, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said.

Lukas said he preferred not to run Dublin under the night racing environment at Churchill Downs, which typically has a large, raucous crowd just outside the paddock area.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Larry Jones knows eventually his 3-year-old filly Joyful Victory will have to face Plum Pretty again. But Jones is not fretting the fact that the rematch will not take place in Saturday’s Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Courageous Cat, the winner of the Grade 3 Poker Stakes at Belmont Park on June 10 and three other stakes in his career, will be shipped to California for the $300,000 Shoemaker Mile on July 2, owner Marty Wygod said on Wednesday.

“That’s our current intent,” Wygod said. “He won the last race pretty easily. It seems to be a good spot for him. I think he would be the favorite.”

AUBURN, Wash. – Already well down the road to a possible return engagement in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, Atta Boy Roy could make a detour to the Pacific Northwest for a start in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile on Aug. 21, trainer Valorie Lund said Tuesday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The versatile Hold That Echo should be a player in Friday’s seventh race at Woodbine, which is the first leg of a marathon starter allowance series.

The nine-furlong turf route is for fillies and mares who have competed for a claiming price of no more than $20,000 in 2010-2011, and it carries a purse of $51,400. Hold That Echo had a solid 2010 campaign, during which she won 4 of 9 starts and more than $70,000. She ran hot and cold on the grass last summer, which included a victory over $40,000 conditioned claimers.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Check Your Soul, impressive winner of the 1 1/8-mile Plate Trial on June 5, breezed five furlongs in 1:01.60 here Wednesday morning in preparation for Sunday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate.

A field of 16 or 17 is expected when the entry box closes at 8:30 a.m. Thursday for the Queen’s Plate, the 1 1/4-mile race for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds that is being run for the 152nd time.

Check Your Soul, under Patrick Husbands, went in company with older stablemate Simmard and exercise rider Darren Fortune.