BOSSIER CITY, La. – Saturday’s Prelude Day is not quite the premier program of the Louisiana Downs season, but it promises to be an awfully good dress rehearsal.

In addition to producing at least one Super Derby starter – the $100,000 Prelude winner receives an all-fees berth in the big dance next month – Saturday’s five supporting stakes, all on the grass, all at one mile in distance, and each worth $50,000, promise to provide plenty of additional participants for the stakes-rich Super Derby undercard on Sept. 25.

A day after Delta Downs announced the purse for the Grade 3 Delta Jackpot for 2-year-olds would be raised back up to $1 million and held two weeks earlier on Nov. 20, the track released its full stakes schedule with the former prep for the Jackpot, the Jean Lafitte, now being run on Jan. 14.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Soda Pop Kid settled in nicely at Monmouth Park this summer.

A 5-year-old gelding trained by Bruce Levine, Soda Pop Kid tries to extend his unbeaten streak at the meet to three on Friday in the featured 10th race, a third-level optional $62,500 claimer at six furlongs.

With the early scratch of Golden Spikes, Soda Pop Kid gets the rail against seven rivals. He also has a stablemate, Independence War, running as an uncoupled betting interest.

If jockey Tony Maragh made the right choice, Pros Or Joes has a good chance of winning Friday’s feature at Northlands Park. The 6 1/2-furlong dash for 3-year-olds drew eight horses running for a $12,500 claiming price.

Maragh had another option in Easy Whiskey, who is coming off of a win in a $15,000 claiming race for nonwinners of two Aug. 8.

Pros Or Joes, trained by Rod Cone, should appreciate the move back to a sprint and the easier company after setting the pace before fading to fourth in a one-mile race for $20,000 claimers Aug. 15.

One of the last remnants of a fading American tradition will be on display for the next two weekends when live racing returns to Timonium Race Track at the Maryland State Fair. Racing will be held Friday through Sunday, then again from Sept. 3 through Labor Day.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Danny Vella plans to be represented in both turf stakes here this weekend, with Lucy Ring entered in Saturday’s one-mile Ontario Colleen for 3-year-old fillies and Field Commissioner slated for Sunday’s seven-furlong Play the King for 3-year-olds and upward.

The two come into their respective events with vastly different credentials, however, as Lucy Ring will be trying a new distance and surface in just her third start, while the veteran Field Commission will be returning to his preferred milieu in the Play the King.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario– Gypsy Ring drops into a first-level allowance on Friday at Woodbine, and should be a formidable opponent in the seven-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up.

Gypsy Ring, a 4-year-old owned and trained by Paul Buttigieg, has had a fruitful meet. He captured back-to-back allowances restricted to Ontario-breds in May, earning an 86 Beyer Speed Figure on each occasion.

Golden Stripe, who has been highly competitive in open filly and mare company, will be the one to beat when she faces fellow Manitoba-breds in the $50,000 Distaff at Assiniboia Downs on Friday evening.

The one-mile Distaff is one of two stakes on the program along with the $40,000 CTHS Sales, a six-furlong race for 2-year-olds.

AUBURN, Wash. – Bill Tollett arrived at Longacres in 1964, shortly after fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson took up residence in the White House. In the ensuing 46 years, he has saddled more than 1,000 winners up and down the West Coast and trained dozens of stakes victors, none better than Harmony Creek, who finished third in the 1989 Longacres Mile as a 3-year-old.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trappe Shot is in. So is Miner’s Reserve - for now. Perhaps fittingly, Super Saver, the somewhat forgotten Kentucky Derby winner, is on the extreme outside for Saturday’s $1 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga.

That trio, as well as Jim Dandy winner A Little Warm, were among the 11 3-year-olds entered Wednesday for Saturday’s 141st Travers, run at 1 1/4 miles. If the field holds, it will equal the second-largest since 1993, when Sea Hero won in a field of 11. The 2008 Travers, won by Colonel John, had a field of 12.