The Grade III $200,000 American Derby is part of Million Preview Day July 12 in Chicago, featuring four graded-stakes races on turf. 
On Wednesday, three-year-old fillies will take to the turf in the $50,000 Christiana Stakes at Delaware Park. The race will be run at a distance of about one mile on the grass and has drawn a field of ten, including undefeated Italian stakes winner Black Elegance (IRE) who will make her United States debut. 
Certainly, there are bigger races elsewhere in the country July 5, but the $75,000 Arlington Sprint Stakes is not without intrigue as eight runners are signed on to contest the five and half furlong turf event. 
Saturday will mark the inaugural running of the Belmont Derby Invitational. With Grade 1 status and a lucrative purse of $1.25 million, the mile and a quarter turf contest has attracted an international field of eleven three-year-old colts and geldings. 
The $250,000 Iowa Derby will feature some familiar names from the Triple Crown trail as well as some up-and-coming new players to the three-year-old ranks. Run at a mile and a sixteenth, the Grade 3 contest has drawn a field of nine. 
With reigning turf champion Wise Dan sidelined as he recovers from colic surgery, Obviously (IRE) capitalized and defended his title in the Shoemaker Mile Stakes (G1) with a one and a half length victory over a field of six rivals. 
After a disappointing fifteenth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, Tapiture will try to return to the promising form he showed early in his career and take on six rivals in the $100,000 Matt Winn Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs. 
Twelve horses will be lining up to take a shot at upsetting 2013 Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice on Saturday in the Met Mile, one of six Grade I races on this year's Belmont undercard. 
One of the new shooters to take aim at a Triple Crown jewel, Tonalist will go into the Belmont Stakes off an impressive win over the same track in the Peter Pan Stakes.