A court date in the case of It’s a Bird , who was disqualified from his six-length win in last year’s Grade 2, $500,000 Oaklawn Handicap, has been set for Aug. 26 in Pulaski County Circuit Court in Little Rock, Ark., according to an official with the Arkansas Racing Commission. It’s a Bird’s connections are appealing the disqualification, which came after the horse tested positive for naproxen, a Class 4 nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory that is sold for human use under the brand name of Aleve.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When trainer Rick Violette looked at the entries for Thursday’s Latham Stakes at Saratoga, he couldn’t believe the purse was only worth $70,000.

“The purse should be about $250,000,” said Violette, who will start Flamin’ Hot in the 5 1/2-furlong turf stakes. “It’s an incredibly competitive race. Certainly, you can make a case for about half a dozen of them.”

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick returned a casino gaming bill back to the state legislature Monday with provisions for racetrack slot parlors stripped away, apparently killing the issue for another year.

Hours before a midnight Saturday deadline, legislators overwhelmingly passed a bill allowing three resort casinos and two slot parlors open to bidding by the state’s four racetracks. The bill was championed by House Speaker Robert DeLeo, a Democrat whose district covers Suffolk Downs and Wonderland Greyhound Park and whose father worked at Suffolk’s Turf Club.

Four graded stakes winners are among the nine 3-year-olds entered to run Saturday in the Grade 2, $750,000 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park.

Some of the hottest names in racing will participate in the West Virginia Derby with that quartet: Bob Baffert and jockey Martin Garcia with Concord Point, Jerry Hollendorfer and jockey Joel Rosario with Skipshot, Steve Asmussen with Thiskyhasnolimit, and Todd Pletcher with Exhi.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The $300,000 Clement Hirsch Stakes on Saturday may be the last career start in California for Zenyatta, if the undefeated two-time champion runs as expected in the Grade 1 race at Del Mar.
While watching Zenyatta jog and gallop on Hollywood Park’s main track on Tuesday, trainer John Shirreffs said the popular 6-year-old mare was scheduled to be entered for the Hirsch on Wednesday, with a decision on her participation to be finalized after she trains on Del Mar’s Polytrack synthetic surface on Thursday and Friday.

AUBURN, Wash. – Mulcahy was being touted as an Emerald Downs stakes contender early this summer, but circumstances have changed, and Thursday, the former Emerald Derby champion is scheduled to face five rivals in a $7,500 claimer for older horses at 6 1/2 furlongs.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The first graded stakes race of the meet for the steeplechasers at Saratoga on Thursday finds the training juggernauts of Jonathan Sheppard and Tom Voss with, collectively, a full house, and a handful of others trying to top that formidable hand in the Grade 2, $75,000 A.P. Smithwick Memorial.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The pickings are slim on Thursday’s eight-race card at Woodbine. The featured second race, an allowance prep for the Aug. 28 Ontario Colleen Stakes, drew just five 3-year-old fillies, who will meet over seven furlongs on the turf, for a purse of $91,100.

Redverse should be favored. She was a non- threatening sixth in her May 23 season opener on Polytrack in the La Lorgnette Stakes.

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said he will consider both the King’s Bishop at seven furlongs and the $1 million Travers at 1 1/4 miles as potential next starts for Haskell Invitational runner-up Trappe Shot.
McLaughlin felt his horse was compromised by a bad start in the Haskell, but added that it might have made the difference of getting beat two lengths by Lookin At Lucky instead of four.
“He got the jump on us and he ran huge,” McLaughlin said. “We proved we fit with these types; we always felt like we did.”

DEL MAR, Calif. – Uncle Jeep, a former $16,000 claimer who has been successful in turf sprints this year, may give trainer Jack Carava his elusive first winner of the Del Mar meeting on Thursday.

Carava is winless with his first seven starters, which he said has not been a surprise. A private trainer for La Canada Stable, Carava had a successful Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting earlier this year, winning 18 races, or with 26 percent of his starters.

“We were definitely forecasting a slow start, and it may be a slow first half [at Del Mar],” Carava said.