LEXINGTON, Ky. - If the 2-year-old racing can't get any more exciting, then it must be Breeders' Cup time. The colts and fillies with the most obvious chances at next year's top races are showing what they can do on the racetrack, and the opportunities are nearly endless for gamblers, breeders, fans, and owners brimming with hope.

This past weekend had more than its share of exciting preps for the Breeders' Cup juvenile races. The first graded winners by Awesome Again and Touch Gold won, respectively, the Champagne (Toccet) and Oak Leaf (Composure).

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Wood Memorial winner Buddha, retired earlier this month with a torn muscle, will launch his stallion career in 2003 at John Sikura's Hill 'n' Dale Farm, Sikura announced Friday.

Buddha's stud fee will be $15,000, and he will stand as the property of Gary and Mary West.

Buddha, a 3-year-old Unbridled's Song colt, retired on Oct. 1 with a torn muscle in his left gluteal area, near the top of his rump. It was the same injury that required him to bow out of the Grade 2 Jim Dandy and Grade 1 Travers Stakes this summer.

The biggest day of the year for the New York breeding program is Saturday, Oct. 19, on closing weekend of the Belmont Park fall meet.

The entire card is devoted to New York-breds, including seven stakes, worth a total of $1 million in purses.

The stakes lineup New York Showcase:

* $250,000 Classic: 3-year-olds and up; 1 1/8 miles on dirt

* $150,000 Ticonderoga: fillies and mares; 1 1/8 miles on turf

* $150,000 Mohawk: 3-year-olds and up; 1 1/8 miles on turf

* $125,000 Iroquois: fillies and mares; seven furlongs on dirt

ARCADIA, Calif. - The California Cup program at Santa Anita on Nov. 3 will arrive too quickly for Slew City Lily, who won her second race from three starts on Friday.

Slew City Lily ran six furlongs in 1:09.47, scoring her first victory against winners in an allowance race for statebred fillies and mares.

"It's too close and they don't have a race that fits her," trainer Paul Aguirre said of the California Cup. "Maybe next year."

Sending out four homebreds to win stakes within a four-week span defies the odds. But what are the chances of performing that feat with older veterans - ages 8, 7, 5, and 4? That's how it happened for Howard and Sondra Bender, and their trainer Larry Murray, who won three stakes during the brief Pimlico fall meet, and one at Delaware Park.

"It's hard to believe," said Howard Bender, "I guess we made a statement for the old-timers."

Harold J. Plumley was reelected last Sunday to serve a third term as the president of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association. But if seven years ago you had suggested to Plumley that he would become a breeder and owner of Thoroughbreds, he no doubt would have raised his eyebrows, smiled, and said that was unlikely.

One of the surest ways to jump-start a stallion's career is to send him away for a while.

At least that seems to be a trend in the breeding industry, and Ted Burnett, owned of Josham Farms in Ontario, is inclined to agree.

Burnett sent his stakes-winning Deputy Minister horse Tejabo to Brian Kozak's Crown West Farm in Chillwack, British Columbia, last fall on a two-year contract.

The 17-year-old had sired four stakes winners from six crops when he left Ontario, but it wasn't until this year that the horse's runners made headlines.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Raja Baba, once North America's leading stallion and the sire of such champions as Sacahuista and Summer Mood, was euthanized Wednesday at Carl Pollard's Hermitage Farm near Goshen, Ky. He was 34.

Hermitage manager Bill Landes said Raja Baba was euthanized because of the infirmities of old age.

Grade 2 winner and millionaire Hap will begin his stud career in 2003 at Darby Dan Farm in Lexington, the California-based Narvick International confirmed Wednesday.

Narvick manages bloodstock for Michael Paulson, Hap's owner. Paulson, son of the late Allen Paulson, has overseen his father's estate since the elder Paulson's death in 2000. Hap, a 6-year-old Theatrical horse, will stand as the Allen Paulson Living Trust's property for $5,000.

Hap retired in July after injuring an ankle.

Coolmore Stud's major client, Michael Tabor, who lost his multiple Grade 1 winner Left Bank to complications from colic on Monday, restocked his stable with an $807,428 colt Tuesday at the Goffs Orby yearling sale in Kill, Co. Kildare, Ireland.

Tabor's agent, Demi O'Byrne, bid for the session-topping colt. The session-leading colt is by Coolmore stallion Sadler's Wells and out of the Shirley Heights mare Puck's Castle. Sold as Hip No. 149, the bay yearling is a half-brother to stakes winner Emerald Peace, the mare's sole winner from three foals to date.