ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Major Gain wasn’t quite ready to win a maiden race when he made his career debut a month ago, but he was ready to win the Arlington-Washington Futurity on Saturday at Arlington Park. No wonder. Wayne Catalano trains him.

Fascinatin’ Rhythm made it two in a row at Laurel Park on Saturday, putting away four rivals to win the $50,000 Geisha Stakes by a length.

Winner of the six-furlong Jameela on the Laurel turf last month to end a 13-race losing streak, Fascinatin’ Rhythm stretched out to a mile on dirt in the Geisha. Ridden by Forest Boyce, she pressed the pacesetting Ysabel T. through a quarter-mile in 24.17 seconds, then took over along the backstretch, leading the field through a half-mile in 47.26 seconds, three-quarters in 1:11.83.

Jemilyn romped to a four-length win Saturday in the $150,000 PHBA Distaff Stakes for fillies and mares at Parx Racing. The PHBA Distaff was the featured event on a card devoted exclusively to Pennsylvania-breds.

Jemilyn missed by only one length last year when this stakes was run at seven furlongs. She had no problems with the distance change to 1 1/16 miles.

After running in a pair of open stakes, Jemilyn clearly the relished the return to statebred company.

The mare Illeria, a stakes winner during her racing career, produced her first foal way back in 1995. Serenity Jane, the name given that youngster, made three starts, and won none of them. But Illeria’s 1996 model, eventually named Magic Broad, was much more racehorse: Her five career wins included a victory in the Grade 3 Selima Stakes. In 1997, Illeria gave birth to a foal who would be named Include, and for a while in 2001, Include was the best thing out there, scoring sharp back-to-back-to-back victories in the New Orleans Handicap, the Pimlico Special, and the Massachusetts Handicap.

Fair Grounds will put on a meet as quick and powerful as a Quarter Horse Tuesday, when it opens for 10 days of racing for the breed with purses of about $200,000 a card. The season will continue to Sept. 25, and in some ways it serves as a lead-in to the $1.1 million Challenge Championship program.

Fair Grounds, the New Orleans track owned by Churchill Downs Inc., made a successful bid for the American Quarter Horse Racing Association’s traveling championship event and will host it for the first time Nov. 19.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Gio Ponti on Saturday continued preparations for his fall campaign, a campaign that his connections have yet to definitively map out.

In his first work since finishing second in the Arlington Million on Aug. 21, Gio Ponti worked a solid five furlongs in 1:01.72 Saturday morning over Belmont Park’s inner turf course. Following an early afternoon conversation with owner Shane Ryan, trainer Christophe Clement said that it has yet to be determined where Gio Ponti will make his next start.

FRANKLIN, Ky. – A second-level allowance at all-turf Kentucky Downs isn’t supposed to be nearly as tough as a second-level turf allowance at Saratoga. Right?

“You wouldn’t think so,” said trainer Rusty Arnold. “That’s why we’re headed that way, to find out.”

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” wrote Robert Frost in his poem “The Road Not Taken,” but for racing fans, that famous opening line could be altered to read, “Two roads diverged in the Kelly’s Landing Stakes.” The winner of the $65,000 Kelly’s Landing on June 26 at Churchill Downs, Here Comes Ben, took the road leading to Saratoga, where he won the Grade 1 Forego last weekend. Hamazing Destiny, second by a neck to Here Comes Ben, has wound up in the featured second race on Monday at Delaware Park.

Marquis Downs canceled its Friday night program after heavy rainfall left the track completely under water. The Prairie Lily Stakes has been rescheduled for next Saturday, closing day of the meeting.

Blame has reacclimated to his surroundings at Keeneland and remains firmly on target for the Oct. 2 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park, trainer Al Stall Jr. said early Saturday from the Lexington, Ky., track.

By the time he departs by plane for New York on Sept. 30, Blame will have had four straight Sunday workouts over the Polytrack surface at Keeneland, the second of which was scheduled for this Sunday, said Stall.