ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Fifty Proof is the class of Saturday’s $125,000 Steady Growth Stakes, but Ultimate Destiny brings a two-race winning streak into the 1 1/16-mile route for Ontario-sired stock at Woodbine.

Fifty Proof was Canada’s champion older male in 2011 after winning the Grade 3 Eclipse Stakes and running second in a pair of Grade 2 turf stakes, the King Edward and the Nijinsky. Following an extended layoff, he returned last December to take the restricted Sir Barton Stakes in front-running style going long on the Polytrack.

Quarter Horse Racing Dates

March 6 - May 31 (Thursday - Sunday)

Post Times

6:00 p.m. CT (Thursday - Saturday)

1:30 p.m. CT (Sunday)

Special Post Times

5:00 p.m. CT (Saturday, March 7)

1:30 p.m. CT (Monday, May 25)

Handicapping Information

ELMONT, N.Y. – As agent Steve Rushing made the rounds at Belmont Park on Thursday morning, he had the unenviable task of delivering the news that no horseman or racing fan wanted to hear: Jockey Ramon Dominguez has been forced to retire.

Rushing, who has served as Dominguez’s agent for 13 years, probably encapsulated Dominguez best with the following: “He’s a world-class rider, but he’s even a better person. It’s just devastating to lose someone like that in our industry.”

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Trainer Carl Lausten said Dance the Wind came out of her win in the $50,000 Vancouver Sun last Sunday in great shape and likely will be pointed to the $50,000, 1 1/16-mile Monashee on July 1.

The Sun was the first stakes win for Dance the Wind, but she had strong credentials going into the 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares. Last year, she finished second behind Evelyn’s Dancer in the Hong Kong Jockey Club and the $100,000 British Columbia Oaks.

The connections of several graded stakes winners will keep an eye to the sky as the first of five “Party of the Park” Fridays is highlighted by a pair of $90,000 overnight stakes. First post is 3 p.m. Eastern, as it will be each Friday through the end of the meet.

A forecast for potential heavy rain and thunderstorms arriving Thursday afternoon could wreak havoc with comeback plans for Mucho Macho Man in the Criminal Type (race 3), and Hudson Steele in the Three Coins Up (race 5).

AUBURN, Wash. – While horsemen struggled to fill races early in the 75-day meeting at Emerald Downs, the tide has turned over the past couple of weeks. When racing resumes Friday with a seven-race card at 6:45 p.m. Pacific, the fields will include an average of 9.7 horses per race, making it one of the most intriguing betting cards of the meeting.

BOSSIER CITY, La. – Ronald Ardoin will join elite company on June 29 when he is inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. The popular rider-turned-jockey’s agent will join six other riders and an owner in the hall, which inducted its first class in 1958.

Ardoin’s contemporaries Eddie Delahoussaye, Mark Guidry, Craig Perret, and Randy Romero are all members of the Hall, as are Eric Guerin, rider of Native Dancer, and J.D. Mooney, who piloted the legendary Black Gold. Eclipse Award-winning owner John Franks was inducted in 1995.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Reade Baker t rained four of the 28 Canadian-bred 3-year-olds who remained eligible for the July 7 Queen’s Plate at Woodbine after the June 1 payment stage.

But with Holy Whirl Wind finishing ninth of 10 in last Sunday’s Plate Trial, Downtown falling behind schedule, and Silent Admirer currently not under consideration, a maiden, Scipio, was Baker’s only Queen’s Plate prospect as of Wednesday morning.

“He’s the last man standing,” Baker said.

Ben Cecil was a young teenager when he accompanied his uncle, Henry, to Newbury Racecourse near London in the early 1980s. It turned out to be more than a day at the races. It was a life-changing outing.

“I was hooked,” Cecil recalled Wednesday.

At the time, Henry Cecil was the leading trainer in England, and his nephew knew what he wanted to do for a living.

“He was the whole reason I got into this game,” Ben Cecil said. “In those years, he had all those good horses – Slip Anchor, Oh So Sharp, Diminuendo, Reference Point.”

Marquis Downs begins its 2013 meeting Friday evening with an eight-race program that attracted a solid 74 horses.

The card will be the first of 26 this season at the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, racetrack that in recent years has conducted a 30-day meeting.

“We had to lop off four days and axe much of our stakes schedule,” said Rick Fior, manager of racing at Marquis Downs, adding that the cuts were necessary because a $300,000 grant previously supplied by the province was discontinued.

“We’ll be running mostly claiming races and some allowance races,” he said.