FORT ERIE, Ontario - Two Woodbine-based 5-year-old geldings, Barbeau Ruckus and Forever Grand, headline the $75,000 H.J. Addison Jr. at Fort Erie on Sunday.
Both are looking for a second score in the 1 1/16-mile stakes, which is restricted to colts and geldings who were offered at one of Woodbine's open yearling or 2-year-olds in training sales. Only four runners are entered.
Barbeau Ruckus won last year's Addison; Forever Grand won it in 2002.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Shanghied looks for his third win in a row, all at this track, in Sunday's $40,000 Derby Trial Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles.
The Derby Trial is the major local prep for the $75,000 Manitoba Derby, a 1 1/8-mile race here Aug. 2.
Trained by Bert Blake, Shanghied won his maiden here on May 29. He then won the six-furlong Golden Stakes in his next start on June 11, posting a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 78.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Placid Star has won on dirt, turf, around one turn and two, and at three different tracks. But she will be charting new territory Sunday, when she starts in an overnight handicap for 3-year-old fillies at Louisiana Downs.
Placid Star will be facing open company for the first time in the one-mile race, which will be held on turf. Her chief rivals in the nine-horse field include such promising fillies as Outright Buck and Smokey Diplomacy, as well as open-company stakes winner Lucky Tunnel.
Expect Will always gets the job done, and he always makes it interesting. Undefeated in three career starts, his largest margin of victory has been a half-length.
"That's who he is," said Steve Asmussen, who trains Expect Will. "You don't know what's in him. He's just like his dad. He's not doing it for the fun of it."
Expect Will is by Valid Expectations, a retired Asmussen trainee who is now the leading sire in Texas. Valid Expectations won a number of races by less than a half-length and ended his career with earnings of $596,092.
PLEASANTON, Calif. - One bettor picked all six winners at the Alameda County Fair on Thursday earning a record Pick 6 payoff on the Northern California fair circuit of $236,988.20.
Only one favorite, Comic Express ($5) in the seventh race, won. Other winners in the sequence were Hey Fabulous ($14.60), Better Daze ($7.20), Devil's Bro ($77.40), Brite Colors ($10.60) and Beau's Gem ($14.60).
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Even the Score joined trainer Vladimir Cerin's stable last fall as a minor stakes winner with a history of foot problems.
"We knew he'd be a project," Cerin said.
The success of that venture has taken Even the Score's career much further than Cerin and owner Ro Parra, of Austin, Texas, expected.
Saturday, Even the Score will be a short-priced favorite to win his third consecutive stakes in the $750,000 at Hollywood Park.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Five months and five starts since his flashy debut victory, faces a familiar rival Saturday at Hollywood Park - the curse of high expectations.
Five others also entered the Grade 2, 1 1/8-mile Swaps Stakes for 3-year-olds, including front-runner - but most attention will be focused on Rock Hard Ten, and deservedly so. The good-looking colt may be a standout while dropping from Grade 1 competition into a $400,000 race against Boomzeeboom, Capitano, Suave, Bear in the Woods, and Brands Hatch.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Nashinda will try the turf for the first time Saturday at Woodbine in the $161,400 Ontario Damsel Stakes, a 6 1/2-furlong dash for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies.
Nashinda might have been favored in the June 13 Labatt Woodbine Oaks, a $500,000 stakes, but she was forced to miss it, along with about 10 days of training, after coming up lame a few days before the race was drawn, according to trainer Mac Benson.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - Woodbine-based trainer Mike DePaulo, who won the Canada Day Stakes at Fort Erie July 1 with Krz Ruckus, has been looking forward to Saturday's $75,000 H.A. Hindmarsh Stakes.
The 1 1/16-mile Hindmarsh is restricted to fillies and mares who have been offered for sale at one of Woodbine's open yearling or 2-year-olds in training sales.
DePaulo is confident that his 4-year-old filly Kissed by a Prince will run well in the five-horse Hindmarsh field.
DePaulo called Kissed by a Prince "a very good filly."
