The Grade 2, $84,780 Southwest Challenge and the $35,540 West/Southwest Juvenile Challenge, the final two stakes of the 2006 regional Challenge series, will be contested at Turf Paradise on Sunday.
The winners of those two stakes will be the final two qualifiers to their respective stakes during the Challenge Championships at Lone Star Park on Nov. 11.
Tricky Dust should be favored to secure his seventh straight win when he starts in Saturday's $60,000 Herman Jefferson Stakes, an 870-yard race at Zia Park.
The defending Herman Jefferson winner, Tricky Dust's six-race winning streak includes five stakes, all at 870 or 1,000 yards, and he has been the odds-on favorite in his latest four starts.
Governor's Cup Derby winner Wave Carver and 2005 champion 2-year-old Higher Fire head the three trials to the Grade 1, $700,000 Los Alamitos Super Derby on Friday evening.
Wave Carver has developed into a premier 3-year-old at Los Alamitos with a win in the Grade 2 Governor's Cup and seconds in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Derby and the Grade 1 Golden State Derby. Those two runner-up finishes are his only defeats from six 2006 starts.
Cole Norman makes winning look easy, but to secure his ninth straight training title this meet at Louisiana Downs he had to overcome significant personal adversity. Not only was Norman healing from a broken neck sustained last December, but he also was in a car crash in May, then watched his wife, Tamara, undergo neck surgery in September.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Humoristic had the last laugh in 2005 Violet Stakes, pulling off the upset at 28-1.
The 5-year-old returns to the Meadowlands Racetrack on Friday night to defend her title in the Grade 3, $150,000 race for fillies and mares on the turf.
Humoristic, who has not won since that upset, faces seven rivals, including stablemate Art Fan, in the final graded stakes of the meet that runs through Nov. 11. No Sleep and Phyllis Sassy Girl will run on the main track only.
It's time for J'ray to start playing catch-up. While her Todd Pletcher-trained stablemates, Wait a While and Magnificent Song, spent the summer soaring to the top of North America's 3-year-old filly turf division, J'ray did little more than train in the mornings and stand in her stall in the afternoons.
But when the Grade 3, $125,000 Valley View Stakes is run Friday at Keeneland, J'ray will rejoin the chase. A three-time stakes winner on grass, she will make her first start since she finished third in the April 23 Appalachian Stakes here in the spring.
In recent years, horses based at Woodbine havent had much of an impact on the Canadian International or E.P. Taylor Stakes, whose rich pots lure some serious shippers from overseas and south of the border. But the tide may be about to turn this Sunday, when Sky Conqueror is poised to give the invaders a serious run for the money in the Canadian International and Arravale could be the filly to beat in the E.P. Taylor.
Bright Gold, the defending champion, and Society Hostess, a two-time stakes winner at Belmont this year, are among the talented shippers packed into an overflow field of filly-mare turf-sprint specialists in the Thursday feature at Keeneland, the $100,000 Franklin County Stakes at 5 1/2 furlongs on turf.
For the connections of More Than Regal, there was little drama in drawing post 6 in a 12-horse field for Friday night's $250,000 Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park. The important thing is the trip he gets, said his trainer, Scott Blasi.
"Believe me, I'm more concerned about what happens at the quarter pole than what happens at the start," said Blasi.
Posts for the Oklahoma Derby, a 1 1/8-mile race, were drawn Tuesday, and More Than Regal should be one of the favorites. He has won three stakes this year, including the $250,000 Iowa Derby in June.
Take nothing away from Green Vegas. He has improved dramatically since capturing the Foolish Pleasure Stakes in his two-turn debut last month, and he certainly was a deserving winner of Saturday's $400,000 In Reality Stakes at 1 1/16 miles. To his credit, Green Vegas was also good enough to take advantage when his two chief rivals in the In Reality, Straight Faced and Villainage, were dealt with adversity in the race.
