LAFAYETTE, La. - The $30,000 Bayouland Sales Stakes, second leg of the Evangeline's three-race series for 2-year-olds, has a field of 12. The entrants qualified for the five-furlong race through two trials.
Trial winners Legs O'Neal and Lamarche's Oro should vie for favoritism. Legs O'Neal outfinished favored Prime Time Suzie in qualifying, and covered the five furlongs in 59.60 seconds over a fast track.
Golden Rhythm, who has taken her game to another level since she started racing on turf, is in a good position to pick up her first stakes win Saturday night in the $50,000 Margarita Breeders' Cup Handicap at Retama Park near San Antonio.
The 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares drew a field of 11.
Hal Wiggins admits Saturday's $50,000 Audubon Oaks at Ellis Park is an experiment to see if Lotta Rhythm, a 3-year-old filly he trains, can transfer her stakes-winning dirt form to turf.
Working in her favor is that many of her opponents also are experimenting. Some are being tested for class, with hikes from allowance races, and others are trying grass for the first time.
Bop has run some big turf races in Virginia in the past two seasons. How will he do when he crosses the Mason-Dixon line and visits Pennsylvania?
That's a big question for handicappers attempting to decipher Saturday's 30th running of the Pennsylvania Governor's Cup Handicap at Penn National.
The $50,000 Governor's Cup, slated as the second race on the nine-race card, will be contested at five furlongs on turf for the first time. Previously, it was a 1 1/16-mile grass race.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Trainer Barb Heads was born in British Columbia and is stabled at Hastings Park. Her father was recently inducted into the B.C. horse racing Hall of Fame, and she is a strong supporter of Thoroughbred racing in B.C. She also likes the concept of the B.C. Cup, in which seven stakes races restricted to B.C.-breds are run on a single day.
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan - Four Alberta ship-ins are among the field of seven for Saturday's $15,000 Saskatchewan Derby, one of the highlights of the Marquis Downs meeting.
The purse for the 1 1/16-mile Saskatchewan Derby was doubled just last weekend to help ensure a large and competitive field, and the move seems to have paid off.
The probable favorite is Choktow, who was an impressive winner of his maiden race by 8 1/2 lengths in the mud at Stampede Park this spring.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Big R will be the one to beat as he faces four rivals at Assiniboia Downs in Saturday's $20,000 North Dakota Stallion Stakes.
The 1 1/16-mile feature is for 3-year-olds eligible through the North Dakota Thoroughbred Association.
Owned and trained by Ralph Buchholz, Big R won the restricted North Dakota Futurity at Assiniboia in his only start as a 2-year-old.
After experiencing life as the big fish in a small pond, jockey Clinton Potts was poised to make a big career move. He had just finished the 2000 season with 368 winners, second in the country behind Russell Baze. Potts was also the dominant rider at Penn National Race Course.
As the calendar turned to 2001, Potts was already making plans to ride full time at Delaware Park as soon as the track opened in the spring. Six weeks into the new year, however, Potts's plans were derailed.
ALTOONA, Iowa - Iowa-breds Sharky's Review and Sumthintotalkabout, both multiple stakes winners, head a field of six fillies and mares in Saturday's $40,000 Iowa State Fair Stakes at Prairie Meadows.
Sharky's Review, last year's 3-year-old Iowa-bred filly of the year, enters the six-furlong State Fair Stakes off a closing fourth-place finish in the $125,000 Iowa Distaff at 1 1/16 miles here on July 6.
Last year, Unrullah Bull backed up trainer Cole Norman's contention he was one of the best horses he had ever claimed when he registered his first stakes win in the Ark-La-Tex Handicap at Louisiana Downs.
This year, a win in Saturday's $50,000 Ark-La-Tex at the Bossier City, La., track, would be pure gravy for Unrullah Bull.