ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mike Keogh and owner/breeder Gustav Schickedanz already have had their downs and ups on the Canadian triple crown trail this season, with Artic Fern being sidelined just before the Queen’s Plate and Mobil Unit coming up big with a second-place finish in the Prince of Wales.

On Sunday, Keogh and Schickedanz will be looking for a happy ending when Silent Wisper takes on the boys in the $500,000 Breeders’, the 1 1/2-mile turf race that is the finale of the series for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.

MIAMI – Big Drama is in line for a much-deserved rest, although his younger brother Little Drama could swing back in action in as little as two weeks, trainer David Fawkes reported on Friday.

FORT ERIE, Ontario – Small stables, often overlooked, can make or break the overall backstretch operation.

They have to fight for a stall or two at times and their horses are usually in the claiming category. But they are willing to enter, and that makes them essential players when it comes to filling a racing card.

Luthia [Lucy] Shirley operates such a stable at Fort Erie, and has been working with horses since beginning as a Woodbine hot walker in the 1970s.

OPELOUSAS, La. – A significant chapter in Louisiana racing quietly came to a conclusion this summer at Evangeline Downs, close to where it started 26 years ago.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Impossible Time will be the prohibitive favorite in Sunday’s $125,000 Victoriana Stakes, and justifiably so, since she’s been facing much tougher company than she will be in 1 1/16-mile turf route for Ontario-sired females at Woodbine.

The decision to increase the purse of the Arapahoe Park Classic from $30,000 to $50,000 for Sunday’s running has helped the track lure one of the best bred horses to ever race in Colorado. Schramsberg, a son of Storm Cat and champion Serena’s Song, is set to make his stakes debut against nine others in the mile and an eighth race. He was a private purchase from the Robert and Beverly Lewis Trust this spring, and ships to Arapahoe off a first-level allowance win at Prairie Meadows.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Sam-Son Farm has won the Breeders’ Stakes five times, but not since Portcullis got the job done in 2002. The drought could end Sunday at Woodbine, when the powerful stable runs Cognashene, Born to Act, and Empire Rising in the $500,000 third and longest leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, over 1 1/2 miles on the grass.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This is the time of year when Kentucky horseplayers keep one eye peeled on Ellis Park and the other on what’s happening elsewhere, especially at Saratoga, where many of the circuit’s top horses spend the summer.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Woombroom Express will try and win his first race of the year when he drops into a $35,000 optional race that will serve as Sunday’s feature race at Hastings. The 6 1/2-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up drew six horses and goes as race 4 on the eight-race card, which begins at 1:40 p.m. Pacific.