Deputy Etbauer withstood a stretch bid from Tricky Etbauer to win the $50,000 Rainbow Miss Stakes by a half-length at Oaklawn Park on Friday. It was another four lengths back in third to My Dakota.  

Deputy Etbauer ($29.40) was prominent throughout in the six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies bred in Arkansas. She moved to the lead through an opening quarter in 22.57 seconds and dueled with Gone Dixie through a half-mile in 46.86, shaking her off into the stretch. Deputy Etbauer held off a fast-closing Tricky Etbauer in the final sixteenth.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - While he will be a bit sad to see Aqueduct's inner-track season come to an end on Sunday, trainer Bruce Levine will also have plenty to look forward to when the main track opens on Wednesday.

Levine will finish second to Gary Contessa in wins, starters, and purse money won for the four-month inner-track season that began Nov. 28. He has 49 winners at the meet through Friday.

"Spectacular winter," Levine, who averaged 33 winners each of the past three inner-track seasons, said Friday in his Belmont Park barn office. "Everything fell into place."

Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., has increased to six the number of stakes that it will offer the day of the Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby in the most significant change to its 42-race, $3.8 million stakes schedule.

Louisiana Downs will open on May 17, with the 85-date meet to run through Oct. 18.

Saturday's Grade 2, $500,000 Illinois Derby at Hawthorne is expected to draw at least one major Kentucky Derby contender, Southwest Stakes winner Denis of Cork, when entries are taken Monday. And there is an outside possibility the race could land another graded-stakes-winning 3-year-old in Visionaire, who is also being considered for the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland the following week.

Mountaineer Racetrack's 2008 stakes schedule closely resembles the same package of stakes that the Chester, W.Va., facility offered in 2007.

The same 28 stakes, topped by the Grade 3, $750,000 West Virginia Derby, will be run again this year, in exactly the same order as they were in 2007.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - On this weekend a year ago, Kelly's Landing and his connections were in the winner's circle at Nad Al Sheba in Dubai following his thrilling victory in the $2 million Golden Shaheen.

Euroears, who won three stakes this winter at Fair Grounds, sustained a non-displaced condylar fracture in his right hind leg during a routine gallop on Monday and will be out of training for the next six months, according to his trainer, Bret Calhoun.

"He has a very good prognosis," said Calhoun.

Euroears on Tuesday underwent surgery to have two screws placed in the ankle, a procedure that was able to be done with the horse standing. He is scheduled to spend recovery time at the farm of his Texas-based owners, Jim and Marilyn Helzer. The injury occurred at Fair Grounds.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The comeback of Brother Derek has been postponed.

Trainer Dan Hendricks said on Thursday that Brother Derek was to be scratched from an allowance race at Santa Anita on Friday after the 5-year-old developed a quarter crack in a front hoof. Brother Derek had not been officially withdrawn when early scratches were announced on Thursday morning.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - After 12 days of speculation and examination, War Pass gave his connections some tangible evidence that the Tampa Bay Derby may have been an aberration when he worked a solid four furlongs in 47.40 seconds Thursday at the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Wild Hoots and Wow Me Free are already solid contenders for Saturday's $100,000 Next Move Handicap at Aqueduct. But the two Kiaran McLaughlin-trained fillies may have an added advantage when they attempt to win the Grade 3 race for fillies and mares.