Saturday evening’s concluding night of the Iowa Festival of Racing stages the Thoroughbred meet’s trio of Grade 3 stakes – the $200,000 Iowa Oaks, the $250,000 Iowa Derby, and the track’s signature event, the $300,000 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The schedule is nearly constant. On weekdays, Joe Talamo has five to seven workers at Hollywood Park or Santa Anita. By the weekend, the number swells as high as 10.

He works horses every day. Rainy mornings are one of the few things that can keep the 21-year-old Talamo at home. It probably won’t rain again until October.

“I usually work seven days,” he said. “Once a month, I’ll take off a Monday or a Tuesday.”

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Pender Harbour, who thrust himself back into the Queen’s Plate picture with a fourth-place finish here in the 1 1/8-mile Victoria Park Stakes on June 12, tuned up for Sunday’s $1 million showpiece for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds here Tuesday morning. With jockey Luis Contreras in the irons, Pender Harbour worked five furlongs in 1:02 under the watchful eyes of trainer Mike DePaulo and owners Denny Andrews and Bob Giffin.

“That put a little wind into him,” DePaulo said. “It was excellent. I asked Luis for 1:01 and change, and he was almost right on.”

MIAMI – Duke of Mischief has returned home following his fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Grade 1 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs. Duke of Mischief rallied steadily outside horses under Joe Bravo to gain a very brief and narrow lead between calls in early stretch before flattening out and finishing two lengths behind upset winner Pool Play.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Fillies compete against fillies, most of the time. But an exception will occur at Hollywood Park on Thursday, when stakes winner Logical Single goes outside her division to face males in the $70,000 Golden State Cup at a mile on turf.

“It’s not a move we make every day,” trainer Dean Pederson said. “But we don’t feel like we have a lot to lose.”

Racing against boys beats the alternative, which is not racing at all.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Blind Luck may make her next start at Del Mar, in the $300,000 Clement Hirsch Stakes on Aug. 6, but trainer Jerry Hollendorfer has not ruled out a cross-country trip to meet division leader Havre de Grace in the $750,000 Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park on July 16.

The champion 3-year-old filly of 2010, Blind Luck won her second consecutive stakes in the Grade 1 Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park last Saturday.

Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty will miss a start in Saturday’s $250,000 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park after a brief illness earlier this week, trainer Bob Baffert said from Santa Anita on Tuesday.

Baffert said that Plum Pretty had a temperature Monday and that the fever had subsided within 24 hours.

“I was going to send her to New York, and she got a slight temperature,” he said. “I’ve got a little bug in my barn. She’s okay now.”

ETOBICOKE, Ontario —Third time lucky?

Two sets of local owners, both dedicated players of the racing game, will be involved in the Queen’s Plate for the third time when the $1 million showpiece for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds is run over 1 1/4 miles here at Woodbine on Sunday.

Rocco d’Alimonte and Frank Annecchini, who own Head Honcho in partnership with their trainer, Catherine Day Phillips, will be looking for their first Queen’s Plate win when fielding their third Queen’s Plate entrant in as many years.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Four allowance races are sprinkled throughout Thursday’s nine-race card at Belmont Park, with the most intriguing one being the first-level optional claimer scheduled for six furlongs on the inner turf course.

Gantry and Higher Court are only coming off maiden wins and are the most lightly raced members of this field, but look very playable.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Dark Thunder and Safety Check were separated by a nose when they finished second and third in what was their career debut in May 2010 at Parx Racing. Their careers have gone similarly in the 13 months since then, and Wednesday the two cross paths again as the ones to beat in a six-furlong allowance feature at Belmont Park.