ETOBICOKE, Ontario – At this time last year, trainer Danny Vella was just more than a week away from what would be his Queen’s Plate tour de force with Strait of Dover.

This spring, Vella is hoping to get back to the Queen’s Plate with Sweet Little Man, who will be looking to earn his spurs as the lone Canadian-bred in the field of four for the 1 1/8-mile Victoria Park Stakes.

Excepting the common denominator of the trainer, Strait of Dover and Sweet Little Man have been very different at this stage of their 3-year-old careers.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Little Mike, an Eclipse Award turf division finalist last year, is gearing up for an ambitious second half of 2013 after recently returning to Churchill Downs following a brief rest.

Trainer Dale Romans said Friday that he is eager to see Little Mike back in peak form after the gelding began his 6-year-old campaign by running poorly in back-to-back races in Dubai in March.

Romans said Little Mike, bred and owned by Carlo and Priscilla Vaccarezza, is on a schedule intended to lead to the Grade 1, $500,000 United Nations Stakes on July 6 at Monmouth Park.

Jockey Chris Landeros has come home. Well, sort of.

Landeros is a California native, but he considers the Southwest region home and on Sunday he will be back riding at Lone Star Park near Dallas for the first time this season. And when the meet wraps July 6, Landeros said he will head to Remington Park in Oklahoma City to prepare for the season that starts Aug. 16.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Some dads might say a bad day at the track beats a good day anywhere else. That optimistic outlook is a virtual requirement when a card doesn’t look all that appealing, as might be the case Sunday when Churchill Downs hosts a 10-race program.

Just one allowance race is on tap Sunday, when the fare otherwise comprises maiden or claiming events, some of them with rather short fields. Nonetheless, families will turn out en masse in the hopes that dad can cash a few tickets and make Father’s Day 2013 a memorable one.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The corollary effects of the equine herpesvirus at Woodbine were hammered home Friday when a total of 21 of the 96 horses entered for that day’s nine-race card were scratched.

The virus also has put a halt to horses shipping out of Woodbine, leading Fort Erie Racetrack, which relies heavily on Woodbine shippers, to cancel its first scheduled Monday card of the season.

Fort Erie struggled to fill its Sunday card, with 55 horses entered in the eight races.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – It is a peculiar twist that an ungraded sprint stakes on Sunday at Betfair Hollywood Park came up tougher than the Grade 1 Vanity scheduled one day earlier.

Include Me Out and Teddy’s Promise race six furlongs Sunday in the $70,000 Desert Stormer, which brings together the deepest group of fillies and mares for one race in California this year.

ELMONT, N.Y. – In the world of overnight stakes in New York, it is quite common for a trainer to be represented in the race for whom the horse is named. The instance is rare, however, for the honored horse to be represented by one of its own progeny.

Such is the case Sunday when Caroline Thomas, a daughter produced by the Grade 1-winning mare Bit of Whimsy, runs in the $90,000 Bit of Whimsy Stakes at Belmont Park.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Saratoga-based Winning Cause, a Polytrack specialist, is the big name in Sunday’s $150,000 Victoria Park Stakes, a nine-furlong event for 3-year-olds at Woodbine.

Winning Cause is trained by Todd Pletcher, who won the 2010 Victoria Park with Exhi.

Winning Cause graduated going about seven furlongs on Keeneland’s Polytrack in October. After ending up second and fifth in two stakes on Aqueduct’s inner track over the winter, he rallied from left field to notch a seven-furlong allowance win at Keeneland on April 6.

Not even a recent incident of roughhousing on a backstretch walking machine can keep Pk Fire from a start in the Vessels Maturity trials for older Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos on Sunday evening.

Pk Fire emerged from an early June mishap on the horse-walker “scratched up a little bit,” trainer Jaime Gomez said. But after galloping and being ponied in the last week, Gomez on Thursday pronounced Pk Fire fit for the 400-yard trials.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – The first major stakes for 3-year-olds following the Triple Crown is a good one: a rematch between Verrazano and Itsmyluckyday on Sunday in the Grade 3, $150,000 Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park.

The Pegasus kicks off the second half of the season for the division. It also serves a prep for the meet’s premier event – and the long-range target for Verrazano and Itsmyluckyday – the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational on July 28.