It looks like a classic northern Louisiana versus southern Louisiana shootout in Saturday night's Evangeline Downs Mile.
Unrullah Bull, who hails from the powerful Cole Norman stable and is the recent winner of the $75,000 Ark-La-Tex Handicap at Louisiana Downs, will make the three-hour van ride to Lafayette and take on local kingpin Oak Hall in the $75,000 stakes.
FERNDALE, Calif. - Trainer Greg Gilchrist has saddled stakes winners throughout the United States and narrowly missed capturing the 1994 Breeders' Cup Sprint with the filly Soviet Problem. But there is one thing missing on his resume - a stakes victory at the Humboldt County Fair.
Gilchrist can fix that Saturday when he sends out heavy favorite Annual Rainfall in the $8,000-added Les Mademoiselle-Don Harmon Memorial Stakes.
Call it unconventional. Call it unusual. Call it different, to be sure.
Call it whatever you want, but trainer Tim Tullock will be at Ellis Park Saturday to saddle Buster's Daydream, winner of the Sanford, Tremont, and Flash Stakes in his last three starts.
The race is the $100,000 Ellis Park Juvenile, a seven-furlong race in which Buster's Daydream figures as a heavy favorite. Tullock, a New Englander currently based in Maryland, concedes that going out of his way to skip New York fixtures such as the Saratoga Special and Hopeful has raised some eyebrows.
Seven 3-year-olds are scheduled to meet in the $100,000 Larry R. Riviello President's Cup on Saturday at Philadelphia Park.
The one-mile President's Cup is a prep for next month's $500,000 Pennsylvania Derby.
The main local threat is Penn National shipper Beau's Surprise, a winner of two of three starts at Philly Park.
New York invader Wicked Will beat last year's 2-year-old champion, Macho Uno, by a whisker at Saratoga last month in a third-level allowance race. Wicked Will seeks his first stakes win in the President's Cup.
It was a rare loss for Xtra Heat, but her performance in last month's Grade 1 Test at Saratoga was one of her grittiest.
Xtra Heat was pushed through eye-popping fractions of 21.51 seconds and 44.00 in the seven-furlong Test by Harmony Lodge, who staggered home seventh while Xtra Heat battled on bravely to finish second behind Victory Ride. Xtra Heat's 3 1/4-length loss was only her third in 17 career starts.
MIAMI - Leadership in the local sprint division will be up for grabs when a field of nine older runners go six furlongs in Saturday's $60,000 Groomstick Handicap.
Trainer Manny Tortora appears to hold the upper hand heading into the Groomstick, sending out Fappie's Notebook and Alice's Notebook as an uncoupled entry.
As the leading trainer at Delaware Park, Tim Ritchey can afford to be selective when it comes to hiring a jockey to ride first call for him. Rarely does Ritchey entrust that job to an apprentice.
"I will not ride an apprentice unless I think he is a good, solid rider," Ritchey said. "The last apprentice riders I used were Edgar Prado and Kent Desmoreaux."
Needless to say, Ritchey has pretty high standards. Prado and Desormeaux are now among the best jockeys in the country.
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan - Saturday's $6,000 Fred Mendel Memorial Handicap for older runners has drawn five entrants, but Rouge Royale and Beau Ring stand head and shoulders above the competition.
Rouge Royale is the reigning local handicap champion, while Beau Ring was last year's top local 3-year old. The others in the 1 1/8-mile race appear to be vastly overmatched.