Platinum Ballet will square off against top Iowa-bred Switch Lanes and six other fillies and mares in the $50,000 Wild Rose Stakes at Prairie Meadows.
In an evenly matched field, Platinum Ballet deserves a slight nod based on her last main-track performance, when she rallied to finish second, beaten one length, in the $100,000 Bayakoa at Oaklawn Park. Platinum Ballet earned a 98 Beyer Speed Figure in the Bayakoa, which is the highest number of any starter in the Wild Rose.
Fierce Cat, an impressive winner of his first two starts on the turf last month, figures to be a short-priced favorite to notch his first stakes win on the grass in the $45,000 Green Carpet Stakes at River Downs. The Green Carpet, for Ohio-bred 3-year-olds, will be run at 1 1/16 miles.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - If he could have, Steve Asmussen would have run Sister Swank in the Mint Julep Handicap at Churchill Downs on Saturday. But the results of a second - and, hopefully, final - round of blood tests taken from Asmussen's full barn of horses were not scheduled for return until Saturday night, meaning the earliest that any of those three dozen or so horses can race is Sunday.
Trainer H. Graham Motion is preparing a multi-pronged attack on the season's first turf stakes at Delaware Park. But even Motion may not have enough firepower to threaten High Court, the probable favorite in Saturday's $100,000 John W. Rooney Memorial Handicap.
Motion has entered three, but not all of them will run. His two best hopes rest with Gingham and Lace, moving up in class off a solid second at Keeneland in her first start of the year, and Brightside, a one-time professional maiden who woke up when switched to grass.
MIAMI - Dansetta Light is far and away the class of the field for Saturday's $100,000 Office Queen Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Calder, and she would be the overwhelming favorite to post her fifth career stakes victory if the race were to be run on the turf. But the 1 1/16-mile Office Queen is carded for the main track, which could make Dansetta Light a bit vulnerable despite her imposing credentials.
A two-time winner on grass against open company, Frost Princess has found a soft spot against Maryland-bred 3-year-old fillies in Saturday's $50,000 Pearl Necklace Stakes at Pimlico.
won her maiden on grass at 2 last September at Delaware Park. After coming up empty in her 3-year-old debut off a long layoff, she won by four lengths going 1 1/8 miles, beating 11 horses, in a first-level turf allowance at Pimlico a month ago.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. - Jockey Winston Thompson is getting settled as the new dominant force in the riding colony this season at Suffolk Downs.
Thompson has rolled into the vacuum left when perennial leading rider Joe Hampshire chose to race at Philadelphia Park and Mon-mouth Park this summer. Thompson starts the weekend at the top of the standings with 28 wins and has won at least one race every day this meet.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Mona Rose won a pair of stakes and $319,439 but finished fourth in the Sovereign Award voting for champion female turf horse last year.
But the landscape has changed in 2005, as Inish Glora, who repeated as female turf champ, and Hour of Justice, third in last year's balloting, both have been retired to the breeding shed.
That leaves Classic Stamp, runner-up in last year's voting, and Mona Rose to begin what could be a season-long renewal of their divisional rivalry in Sunday's 1 1/16-mile Nassau, the first filly-mare turf stakes of the meeting.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - Fort Erie's first turf race of the season, weather permitting, will be run on Saturday's card.
But there is something new. Track officials have been decided to limit turf races to one per day.
"It's to preserve the turf," said racing secretary Tom Gostlin. "We're running earlier on the turf than we ever have and we will run later than we ever have - definitely to the end of September, and with any luck we'll go into October with it."
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Prime Time T.V., Golden Hunt, and Cherokee Dancer, a trio of Western Canadian-based 3-year-olds with high hopes, will face American invader S C King and two other locally based horses in Saturday's $40,000 Golden Boy Stakes at six furlongs.
In his first start here on May 22, Prime Time T.V. defeated a first-level allowance field by 16 lengths, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 101.
A son of Deputy Minister trained by Bert Blake, Prime Time T.V. has drawn the rail in his first attempt against stakes company. Travis Hightower will be in the irons.
