INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The rapidly improving 3-year-old Zensational will try to dazzle older sprinters next month at Hollywood Park if trainer Bob Baffert and owner Ahmed Zayat go ahead with preliminary plans for an ambitious class jump to Grade 1.

Zensational won a fast-paced allowance sprint for 3-year-olds May 29, earning a 101 Beyer and looking for more. He did not need to look far. Baffert said Friday he might start Zensational against older horses July 5 in the seven-furlong Triple Bend Handicap.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The connections of Rachel Alexandra continue to give off signals that a race is in the near future for the star filly. Rachel Alexandra is scheduled to breeze again Monday morning at Churchill Downs, marking her fourth straight Monday work since she won the May 16 Preakness.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird will make his next two starts in the Aug. 1 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park and the Aug. 29 Shadwell Travers Stakes at Saratoga, trainer Chip Woolley announced Friday at Churchill Downs.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Indian Blessing, the champion female sprinter of 2008, will make her first start in nearly three months in Sunday's $70,000 Desert Stormer Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Trainer Bob Baffert said the Desert Stormer, run at six furlongs for fillies and mares, is a prep for the $150,000 A Gleam Handicap at seven furlongs here on July 18 for Indian Blessing.

"She's running," Baffert said. "I want to see how she'll handle the track."

ELMONT, N.Y. - He is in the middle of his 6-year-old season and a veteran of 28 races. In a span of seven months, he raced in Canada, California, Hong Kong, south Florida, and Dubai. Still, to hear his connections tell it, Kip Deville may be better than ever.

"Michelle came back the other day after a gallop," trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. said Thursday, referring to exercise rider Michelle Nevin "and said 'Rick, that might be the best I've ever felt him.' It's crazy."

Evangeline Downs has announced a 10 percent increase in overnight purses that will go into effect Saturday.

The purse hike brings the nightly average to more than $170,000. That figure does not include supplementary payments to accredited Louisiana-breds racing in open company, which are funded by slot-machine revenue. Maiden special weight races will now be worth $24,200, with Louisiana-breds racing for $34,700.

Evangeline Downs is averaging more than 10.5 starters per race, the highest average in the country.

The Michigan House Appropriations Committee passed a bill Wednesday that would restore Thoroughbred racing dates at Pinnacle Race Course in suburban Detroit's Huron Township.

The vote would reinstate dates to the second-year track, which had its racing schedule essentially cut in half when Gov. Jennifer Granholm slashed $304 million from the state budget last month. Michigan is faced with a $1.3 billion deficit for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

The signal from Colonial Downs in Virginia is being blacked out at all simulcast locations and account-wagering companies affiliated with a simulcast-marketing partnership owned by Churchill Downs Inc. and Magna Entertainment Corp. because of a dispute over account-wagering license fees.

Scott Daruty, the president of TrackNet, said Thursday that the blackout has been precipitated by a law that is set to go into effect on July 1. The law will require account-wagering companies to pay Virginia racetracks and horsemen 11.5 percent of every bet by a Virginia resident.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - He is the X factor in the Stephen Foster equation. Asiatic Boy has done enough in his 15-race career to earn more than $3 million, but how will that compute to his first race on American soil?

Kiaran McLaughlin, the former D. Wayne Lukas assistant who assumed the training of Asiatic Boy in late April for Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al-Maktoum, said race tactics ultimately will fall to jockey Alan Garcia when the 6-year-old Argentine-bred breaks from post 7 in a field of eight older horses in the Grade 1 Foster at Churchill Downs on Saturday.

Way back in 1993, A Classic Dash won the Ed Burke Futurity at Los Alamitos as a prologue to victory in the All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs.

The trainer and jockey behind A Classic Dash - Connie Hall and Eddie Garcia - have a chance to win the same races this summer.

On June 20, they have Streakin Laquinta in the $1 million Ed Burke Million Futurity. If the colt runs well in that 350-yard race, he might go to New Mexico and run in the All American Futurity trials in August.

"I hate to get ahead of myself," Hall said. "This race is enough."