AUBURN, Wash. – Carving, a multiple stakes winner in Southern California, could establish himself as the leading 3-year-old in the Pacific Northwest with a victory Sunday in the $50,000 Auburn Handicap at Emerald Downs. First post for the 10-race card is 2 p.m. Pacific.

The Kentucky Derby once was in long-range plans for Carving, a Bob Baffert trainee who won his first two starts as a 2-year-old, including a seven-furlong stakes race at Fairplex, and then captured the $100,000 Real Quiet Stakes at Hollywood Park in November.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Sahara Sky, winner of the Grade 1 Metropolitan Mile Handicap at Belmont Park last Monday, is headed back to New York later this summer.

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Thursday that Sahara Sky is likely to make his next start in the $500,000 Forego Handicap over seven furlongs at Saratoga on Aug. 31.

“That’s an attractive race,” Hollendorfer said.

Hollendorfer said he was leaning against starting Sahara Sky on the Polytrack synthetic surface at Del Mar later this summer, saying the horse didn’t train well there last year.

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Geeky Gorgeous carries top weight of 125 pounds in her first handicap appearance, the $60,000 Open Mind for New Jersey-bred fillies and mares on Sunday at Monmouth Park.

Trainer Danny Lopez has no complaints with the impost assigned his 4-year-old homebred by stakes coordinator Dan Dufford.

“She should be the highweight,” Lopez said. “It’s the race secretary’s job to get them all there to the wire together. I’ve done my job. He’s done his job. Now let’s see what happens.”

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Stuart Slagle brings extensive experience in the horse racing industry to his new job as racing secretary at Hastings. Slagle began his job last week and said one of the reasons he was attracted to Hastings was the well-established racing community that exists in Vancouver.

“I’ve worked in jurisdictions that were just getting started and places where racing had gone and was just coming back,” Slagle said. “I like the fact that there is a strong racing community here and long history of people enjoying racing.”

The Ontario Racing Commission, in a ruling released Friday, announced that trainer Brian Lynch has been suspended pending the outcome of an ORC investigation.

The ruling cited ORC regulations concerning professional conduct “which occurs outside of the business of horse racing but which brings the industry into disrepute.”

Lynch, who has a 45-horse stable here and recently won the Selene Stakes with Coffee Clique, was allegedly involved in a confrontation with jockey Sunny Singh in one of the parking lots here on May 24.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Free as a Bird takes the next step up while Somali Lemonade takes a logical step back Sunday in a $79,000, second-level allowance race on turf that, despite its placement as the first race on the card, serves as the feature at Belmont Park.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Something has to give when Tommy Danzigger and A Lasting Peace hook up in a $15,000 claiming race at Hastings on Sunday.

The 1 1/16-mile feature attracted 10 horses, and there isn’t much doubt the pace will be fast and hotly contested with Tommy Danzigger and A Lasting Peace both having just one way of going. It should be fun to watch and anyone’s guess as to which of the two will hold up. Maybe neither.

Manitoba’s provincial government introduced a bill Thursday that would reduce Assiniboia Downs’s share of the net proceeds from the 140 video-lottery terminals at the track. The amount is not known.

This is the second time the province has attempted to siphon off funding from the Manitoba Jockey Club, which operates Assiniboia Downs.

FORT ERIE, Ontario – One of the largest crowds in years cheered on the racing action – and the return of a veteran rider – at Fort Erie last Sunday under a warming opening-day sun.

Food and beverage sites were packed all day and the mutuel clerks were inundated with customers who bet more than $128,000 in ontrack wagering for the 8-race card. That represents a 28 percent increase over last year’s opening day, which came three weeks earlier on the Sunday of Kentucky Derby weekend.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Nipissing, a Chiefswood Stable homebred who is coming off a second-place finish in the 1 1/16-mile Selene Stakes for trainer Rachel Halden, figures to be no worse than second choice in the $500,000 Woodbine Oaks here next Sunday.

But Original Script, another Chiefswood runner who is trained by Paul Attard, could be somewhat overlooked in the wagering and is eligible to come up big in the 1 1/8- mile showpiece for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies.