Santa Anita will conduct a renovation on a portion of its main track beginning this weekend in an effort to reduce the clay content and add sand, the track’s president, George Haines, said.

The project will be conducted in part of the seven-furlong chute not currently used for training. Santa Anita is not currently open for racing, but its main track is used for training. The test plot is in an area measuring approximately 340 feet by 75 feet, or the width of the racetrack along about a sixteenth of a mile.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Dominic Galluscio is trying to corner the market on the Noble Nashua Stakes.

After winning the Noble Nashua for New York-breds at Aqueduct on April 22 with Stormy’s Majesty, Galluscio will seek to win Sunday’s $60,000 Noble Nashua, another one-turn mile race for New York-breds, at Belmont Park with Johannesburg Smile.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Funny how that works. Purses at Churchill Downs have undergone a couple of double-digit increases in recent weeks, and now a second-level allowance worth $67,500 has attracted an oversubscribed field of extremely well matched horses, exemplifying how such a formula can work to the advantage of horseplayers.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The depth of Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s powerful stable has pushed him near the top of the standings at the current Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting, and may provide him with his fifth stakes winner of the season in Sunday’s $70,000 Desert Stormer Handicap.

Baffert, who was one win behind Mike Mitchell through Thursday, has two of the six runners in the six-furlong Desert Stormer – Fund Raiser, unraced since October, and expected favorite Irish Gypsy, who won the Valid Expectations Stakes at Lone Star Park last month.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Royal Currier, a very productive claim, tries turf for the first time on Sunday in the $65,000 Anderson Fowler Stakes for 3-year-olds at Monmouth Park.

It could be a whole new dimension for a gelding with solid credentials on the main track.

The Anderson Fowler and the $65,000 Bernie Dowd Handicap for New Jersey breds are the main attractions on Father’s Day, usually one of the best-attended days of the meet. The 12-race card starts at 12:50 p.m.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. – The Northbound Pride Oaks on Sunday Canterbury Park matches the well-traveled Tourmaline and the Kentucky shipper Artemus Kitten, while the Brooks Fields Stakes on the same Father’s Day card is headed by Heza Wild Guy, who is still going strong at 10. The one-mile Northbound Pride Oaks for 3-year old fillies and the 7 1/2-furlong Brooks Fields for 3-year olds and up both are worth $35,000 and will be run on turf.

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ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The brilliant Sand Cove, last year’s champion older male runner in Canada, will try to win the $125,000 Steady Growth Stakes for the second year in a row Sunday at Woodbine.

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. – On the evening of June 11, while the runners for a Quarter Horse race were warming up, the 4-year-old gelding Mark it Famous underwent a quick schooling session in the starting gate. The schooling occurred under the lights, just eight days before Sunday’s Vessels Maturity, for which Mark It Famous set the fastest qualifying time in trials on May 29.

“When the horses were warming up, I was schooling him,” trainer Adan Farias said. “His main problem has been the gate. We’ve schooled him a lot, and so far, so good.”

FORT ERIE, Ontario – Trainer Norm Davies remembers how his father, the late breeder and trainer Stewart Davies, felt about his horses – and one in particular.

“Dad loved his horses,” said Davies, “and one of his all-time favorites is still in my barn.”

Davies, 55, was referring to his 10-year-old mare Cent T Mint, one of five claimers who make up his small stable at Fort Erie.

Salsa Express, a winner of seven races in 2010, will be looking for her first win of the season when she runs in a $30,000 claiming race for fillies and mares that will serve as Sunday’s feature at Northlands Park. The 6 1/2-furlong sprint drew five well-matched horses and will go as the fourth race.