OZONE PARK, N.Y. - After two losses as the heavy favorite in stakes run at Gulfstream Park, Society Selection will try to win for the first time since last year's Grade 1 Frizette in Friday's $100,000-added Comely at Aqueduct.
Society Selection, the most accomplished member of the nine-horse field, meets several promising 3-year-olds and gives away four to six pounds.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Lucayan Beauty finished fifth in her U.S. debut in the La Habra Stakes on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita on Feb. 29, a performance that led trainer Jim Cassidy to re-evaluate her spring campaign.
In the long-term, Cassidy hopes Lucayan Beauty can develop into a stakes-caliber filly around two turns. But Cassidy has not seen enough progress to justify a start in such a race this month.
Instead, Cassidy entered in an optional claimer over about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course on Friday.
CALGARY, Alberta - Judge Ruckus, second to the top Alberta 3-year-old Taiaslew in the President's Handicap here last May, heads a field of nine in a nonwinners-of-two allowance Friday.
The four-furlong dash goes as the eighth of nine races on the holiday program, which begins at 1 p.m.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Tricky Taboo has stepped up his game considerably since he began racing around two turns in February, and was second to Sinister G at 54-1 last out in the Grade 2, $500,000 Lane's End at Turfway Park.
Tricky Taboo, who arrived at Oaklawn last Saturday, is 12-1 on the morning line for Saturday's Arkansas Derby.
ALBANY, Calif. - Saturday's $75,000-added Miss America Handicap at Bay Meadows could prove a good measuring stick for locally based fillies and mares.
The 1 1/16-mile turf race has 10 probables and several others listed as possible. At least seven are based locally, headed by A B Noodle, the possible highweight at 117 pounds, and Hooked on Niners.
Last year, jockey Chad Schvaneveldt said he felt confident going into this race. He was riding local favorite Lindsay Jean, who went on to win the race.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Jockey Melissa Peery got her second Portland Meadows stakes win and trainer Vannessa Hunt got her first in Saturday's $20,000 Oregon Derby, but Santiam Top Jazz topped them both.
The nine-furlong Oregon Derby was the first win of any kind for Santiam Top Jazz, making him the first maiden in 53 years to win the track's premier race for 3-year-olds.
River Downs, the picturesque course on the banks of the Ohio River near Cincinnati, opens for its 79th season of racing Friday afternoon. The 122-day meet runs through Labor Day, Sept. 6.
Highlighting the meet is the $200,000 Miller Genuine Draft Cradle Stakes for 2-year-olds on closing day, which has Grade 3 status for the first time in more than a decade. The Cradle's counterpart for fillies, the $100,000 Pepsi Bassinet, is the only other open stakes scheduled this year and will be run on Sept. 4.
CHICAGO - For sheer bettability, the divisions are clear in Saturday's festival of Illinois-bred racing at the National Jockey Club at Hawthorne meet. Younger - good. Older - bad.
Six $100,000 statebred stakes are on Saturday's menu, and the races were drawn Tuesday. Among them, the four stakes for older horses drew 28 entries. Twenty-five horses were entered in the two 3-year-old restricted stakes.
Trainer Paul Jones will go for his fourth consecutive stakes win when Be Real Quick, the 300-yard track-record holder, shoots for his own fourth straight victory in the $26,600 Kaweah Bar Handicap at 350 yards on Friday night at Los Alamitos.
Jones, the leading trainer at Los Alamitos, won the three minor stakes last weekend at Los Al - the Paradise, Harbor View, and Newport Beach handicaps.