ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Strut the Course, a smart winner of her 2013 debut at seven furlongs, will look to punch her ticket to the June 9 Woodbine Oaks with a strong performance here in Saturday’s $125,000 Lady Angela.

“I liked the way she won; she was supposed to win it like that,” Barbara Minshall, who conditions the homebred Strut the Course for John Unger, said of the filly’s 5 1/4-length win over first-level restricted allowance company here May 5.

Little Polka Dot has her work cut out for her as the 5-2 morning line favorite in Saturday night’s $50,000 Opelousas Stakes at Evangeline Downs. The one-mile turf race for fillies and mares drew a field of nine, seven of whom come off first- or second-place performances on the grass.

Saturday’s featured $60,000 Wild Rose, a 1 1/16-mile event for fillies and mares at Prairie Meadows, brings together five runners all looking for a breakthrough versus stakes-level competition.

The Wild Rose is the local prep race for the $100,000 Iowa Distaff, one of six open stakes races comprising the Iowa Festival of Racing on June 28-29.

Maude S, an Arlington shipper trained by Jim DiVito, and Itsabeautifulthing, a relatively new member of Donnie K. Von Hemel’s Churchill Downs-based string, are expected to vie for favoritism Saturday and both are late-rallying mares.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The big chestnut Irish Mission, last year’s Canadian champion 3-year-old filly and champion turf female, returns to Woodbine on Saturday in the $200,000 Nassau, the first turf stakes of the meet.

Irish Mission won last year’s Woodbine Oaks and was a closing second over a speed-favoring Polytrack in the Queen’s Plate. She beat the boys in the final leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, the Breeders’ Stakes on grass.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Dramatic $500,000 purse cuts for the Grade 1 Canadian International and Grade 1 E.P. Taylor, both among Woodbine’s showpiece events, have been announced with the release of the second part of Woodbine’s stakes schedule for the 2013 meeting.

The first part, consisting of 37 stakes running through Queen’s Plate Day, July 7, was announced at the outset of the meeting.

Rosie Napravnik will seek to join Julie Krone as the only female jockeys to have won the Belmont Stakes. She will ride Code West in the Belmont on June 8, trainer Bob Baffert said Thursday.

Napravnik rode Code West to a runaway victory against older allowance horses Saturday at Pimlico in the race following the Preakness.

Napravnik became available for the Belmont when the connections of Mylute decided Wednesday night to skip the race. Napravnik rode Mylute in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, including a third-place finish in the Preakness.

OPELOUSAS, La. – Jockey Gerard Melancon has been suspended 14 days by the Evangeline Downs stewards for being the aggressor in an altercation with fellow rider Liandro Atempa in the track’s jockeys’ quarters two weeks ago. Atempa required medical attention following the incident, complaining of headaches and dizziness.

In addition to the suspension, Melancon was placed on probation for the remainder of the meeting, which runs through Sept. 7. He was also ordered to undergo anger management counseling.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Kentucky Derby winner Orb took a significant first step toward a possible start in the June 8 Belmont Stakes and a rematch with Preakness winner Oxbow with a strong one-mile gallop Thursday morning over a sealed, good Belmont Park main track.

The exercise was Orb's first since he finished fourth in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico last Saturday, and gave trainer Shug McGaughey encouragement that the horse could make the $1 million Belmont.

[BELMONT STAKES: Probable field and latest updates]

Groupie Doll, the 2012 Eclipse Award winner for filly-mare sprinter, is still weeks away from her first breeze, said trainer Buff Bradley. The 5-year-old mare returned to training early this month at Churchill after almost three months’ rest on Bradley’s farm in Frankfort, Ky.

“She’s just been jogging two miles a day,” said Bradley. “She’ll do that for another week, then start galloping. So we’re still about a month or so away from breezing.”

Bourbon Courage will miss the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap on June 15 at Churchill because of minor injuries incurred in a rough running of the Alysheba Stakes, said trainer Kellyn Gorder.

“We’ve turned him out for a little R and R at WinStar Farm,” said Gorder. “The hide got torn off his left front pretty good. There weren’t any stitches, but he’s cut up there and a couple other spots. We’ll probably bring him back in a few weeks.”