AUBURN, Wash. - If trainer Howard Belvoir doesn't own the $45,000 Emerald Express Stakes for 2-year-olds at Emerald Downs, which will be run for the 11th time on Saturday, he must have a long-term lease on it.
Belvoir won the six-furlong stakes with Sundance Circle in 2003, and the 2004 edition with Seattles Best Joe. Last year, he not only won the race with Tusko T, he completed the exacta with Courting Seattle.
MIAMI - The longest and shortest stakes races in the United States will be decided within a 30-minute span at Calder on Saturday. And that won't even be the most radical part of a wild, 14-race Extreme Day program, which also includes one stakes to be run clockwise on the turf course as well as two races to be contested simultaneously and billed as "the world's fastest daily double."
MIAMI - The $50,000 King George's Wrong Way Stakes is one of five stakes races on Saturday's 14-race Extreme Day program at Calder, but it may take a backseat to a bottom-priced maiden claiming dash and a first-level allowance race on turf. Those two races will be run simultaneously as the "world's fastest daily double." The daily double races are carded as the fourth and the fifth with a post time of 2:19 p.m.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Last summer, Dominic Galluscio enjoyed a successful Belmont meeting with 14 wins, good enough for a seventh-place tie in the trainer standings.
This summer has been one frustration after another for Galluscio, who has only 2 wins from 56 starters, but has 17 second-place finishes. He will try to salvage the meet on Saturday when he sends out Organizer in the $100,000 Evan Shipman Handicap for New York-bred males. Saturday is the final day of the meet.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Revved Up, an 8-year-old gelding who has earned more than $1 million, has been established as the 2-1 morning-line choice for the first running of the $700,000 Northern Dancer Breeders' Cup Turf here at Woodbine on Sunday.
The Northern Dancer, a 1 1/2-mile race for 3-year-olds and upward, drew a field of seven on Thursday and will be the centerpiece of Woodbine's 50th anniversary party, which is being celebrated on Sunday. Woodbine opened on June 12, 1956.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Racing in turf stakes in this region means dealing with Waupaca, who is closing in on $500,000 in earnings. He will continue to work toward that milestone on Saturday, when he heads a full field of 12 for the $40,000 Bob Johnson Memorial at Lone Star Park.
A one-mile race, the Bob Johnson is being run on the grass for the first time, and it drew a competitive group that includes A R Crackers, Oncearoundtwice, Cajole, and Mad Adam.
Commander Buck is charged with defending his home track on Saturday, when he takes on invaders Watchem Smokey and High Strike Zone in the $75,000 Ark-La-Tex Handicap at Louisiana Downs.
The 1 1/16-mile race drew a field of eight, including the promising 3-year-old Mr. Pursuit.
SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Minnesota-bred 2-year-olds figure prominently when facing open company in both the $40,000 Canterbury Park Lassie and $40,000 Brian Barenscheer Juvenile Stakes on Saturday at Canterbury Park.
Trainer Scott Blasi sends out the horse to beat, Unbridled Ambiance, against nine rivals in the 5 1/2-furlong Lassie Stakes. Blasi, filling in for the suspended Steve Asmussen, is a Canterbury Park alumnus, having worked as an exercise rider for his brother Greg here in the mid-1990's.
OMAHA, Neb. - No Sleep should be a big favorite over five other fillies and mares in the $40,000 Queen's Handicap at Horsemen's Park on Saturday, the third day of the track's summer racing festival.
Maggi Moss, the leading owner in the country by races won, will run No Sleep and Switch Lanes as an uncoupled entry in the Queen's. Both are trained by Dick Clark.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Laura de Seroux trains horses in California, but she has been a regular player in Arlington Park turf stakes races the last four years. This week, she sent three horses for two of the graded stakes on Arlington's Saturday program: Artiste Royal starts in the Grade 3, $200,000 Arlington Handicap, and Royal Copenhagen and Round Heels start in the Grade 3, $150,000 Modesty.
