The importance and tradition of the Queen's Plate, Canada's most famous horse race, is not lost on John Fort.

Twilight Meteor, whom Fort bought at a Kentucky yearling sale for $150,000, will be among the favorites in Sunday's race in his first start on Canadian soil.

The bright chestnut 3-year-old colt has a deep Canadian pedigree as a son of Sam-Son Farms' homebred Smart Strike (a son of Queen's Plate winner Dance Smartly) and One Over Prime (a daughter of Queen's Plate and Canadian Triple Crown winner With Approval).

Dream Run has been on a run this month, getting both his first winner and a six-figure auction juvenile during the last 10 days.

A son of Cherokee Run, Dream Run stands at Empire Stud in Hudson, N.Y., for a fee of $5,000. His first runners are 2-year-olds of 2007.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The great white shark of American breeding has struck again. Holy Bull, Horse of the Year in 1994 when he won the Metropolitan Handicap, Travers, and Woodward, has sired a champion juvenile, a Kentucky Derby winner, and on Saturday had the winner of the Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs in Flashy Bull.

Interestingly, all three of those Grade 1 victories came at Churchill Downs, the scene of Holy Bull's major debacle in the Kentucky Derby, when the gray son of Great Above displaced his soft palate and lost all chance in the 10-furlong classic.

A dispersal of Meadow Creek Farm's holdings, including a 2006 Royal Ascot winner, will be part of Tuesday's Barretts summer sale of horses of racing age and 2-year-olds in training in Pomona, Calif.

The Meadow Creek dispersal is part of a 21-horse supplement to the main catalog of 141 horses. The main catalog comprises 23 horses of racing age and 118 2-year-olds in training.

The one-day sale, which will be held on the Los Angeles County Fair grounds, begins at 1 p.m.

The Live Oak Stud homebred Tacit Agreement, a 6-year-old gelded son of Unbridled, is a rarity in American racing in that the farther they go, they better he performs. In his last three starts Tacit Agreement won the 1 1/4-mile My Old Kentucky Home Stakes, the 1 3/16-mile Maryland My Maryland Stakes, and the 1 1/4-mile Mataji Stakes, all at Calder Race Course, by a combined margin of 31 lengths. These victories, along with previous displays of stamina, including a win at two miles, have earned the Florida-bred a new home.

Participating in the Maryland Horse Breeders Association's annual show for Maryland-bred yearlings can prove valuable in many ways. Pat Konka knows this first-hand.

For the second year in a row, a product of Bittersweet Farm - the Westminster, Md., establishment owned by Konka and his wife Maureen Johnson - rewarded the breeders with the $13,000 top award from the yearling show purse premium.

The total 2006 premium of $40,000 was divided eight ways among the show participants who earned the most money at racetracks in North America at 2 and 3.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Her victory in the Belmont Stakes made Rags to Riches the answer to at least a half-dozen trivia questions, including, "Can you name the only three-generation succession of Belmont Stakes winners in modern racing?"

The answer is Seattle Slew (1977), A.P. Indy (1992), and now Rags to Riches. And how fitting it is that the classic victory by Rags to Riches came in the year of the 30th anniversary of Seattle Slew's Triple Crown.

The classy New York-bred sprinter Friendly Island, who has been retired because of ankle problems, ends his career in ninth place on the list of New York-bred earners.

A stakes winner in each of the four seasons he raced, Friendly Island earned $1,369,714. Kentucky Derby winner and Eclipse Award champion Funny Cide tops the list with earnings of $3,469,412.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Gotham City had his first winner as a sire on Wednesday when Commissioner Gordon won the final race of the day at Hollywood Park, a maiden claimer.

The victory may have come in a modest race, but it was a milestone to the people involved with the 9-year-old stallion.

There was a time earlier in this decade when Gotham City's life was jeopardized by a severe bout with colic. Watching him survive to become the stallion of a winner was gratifying to the staff of Applebite Farm in French Camp, Calif., where Gotham City stands.

This has been a season of transition for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. The annual off-campus auction formerly held at Calder Race Course each February was moved to Ocala to avoid the logistical problems created by nearby Dolphin Stadium, which hosted the 2007 Super Bowl.

There was some trepidation that the sale might lose some of its cachet in the transition, but that didn't happen. In fact, the results were positive, so much so that OBS has moved Florida's fifth and final 2007 auction of 2-year-olds in training on Tuesday and Wednesday to its Ocala venue.