NEW ORLEANS - It felt quiet, really quiet, out on the normally bustling Fair Grounds track Tuesday morning. Not long after 9, with plenty of time left to train, the racetrack was nearly deserted. Even right after the renovation break, at 8:30, traffic remained relatively light. Partly, this was because Tuesday is the slowest training day of the week. Partly, it was because Fair Grounds launches an 84-day meet Friday, an earlier start date than ever. Even during the long era of Fair Grounds's Thanksgiving opening, Kentucky horsemen didn't arrive in full force for a couple weeks.

After two races, both at Hawthorne, My Time to Star looks little like a run-of-the-mill Illinois-bred. And next month in Louisiana, he may get a chance to drive home that point.

Two turns is next for Uh Oh Bango following his runner-up finish in the Grade 3 Iroquois last weekend at Churchill Downs, trainer Kory Owens said.

The Iroquois, a one-turn mile race, was the first start beyond six furlongs for Uh Oh Bango, who in September earned his division's best Beyer Figure to date, a 102, for a stakes win at Prairie Meadows.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Woodbine's turf racing season finished last weekend on a good note, with five of the last six races going as scheduled despite less-than-ideal conditions.

Those races brought the total number run over the E.P. Taylor course this year to 180, which falls short of the ideal envisioned by turf course superintendent Sean Gault.

Ken Dunn, the former longtime president of Calder Race Course in Miami, has been hired by Gulfstream Park in Hallandale as part of its management team, according to a release issued late on Monday.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Trainer Bob Baffert swept the first four races at Santa Anita on Sunday, the first time in his career that he could recall saddling four consecutive winners on the same day.

The achievement put him well on his way to the training title at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting, which ends on Sunday. To Baffert, the title would mean little. After Crisis of Spirit had won Sunday's Anoakia Stakes, his third winner of the day, the trainer's focus was fully on the Breeders' Cup races on Friday and Saturday.

The Golden Gate trainer Dean Pederson says the term star "may be a little strong," but he thinks the undefeated 2-year-old Sourdough Sam does have potential.

A John Nicoletti homebred by Decarchy, Sourdough Sam is 2 for 2 after winning an allowance race Saturday at Golden Gate by three-quarters of a length. He rallied from last to catch Shudacudawudya, who had two wins and a second in three starts.

"The horse that ran second did everything right except win," Pederson said. "He just got caught by a horse that seems to have a lot of potential."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As good as Sunday's Grade 3 Iroquois and Pocahontas stakes at Churchill Downs were, those races might prove to be mere tastes of what is to come on closing day of the fall meet, Nov. 28.

A number of the top performers from the two races are expected to return in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club for juvenile males and the Grade 2 Golden Rod for juvenile fillies, including the winners of the Iroquois and Pocahontas - Thiskyhasnolimit and Sassy Image - their trainers said Sunday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Carolyn Costigan couldn't have scripted a more soaring beginning to her training career.

Costigan, a 28-year-old native of Ireland, was saddling her first official starter when Roan Inish won last Saturday's $251,200 Princess Elizabeth here by a length.

"It was pretty awesome," Costigan said. "It was a pretty special day. A couple of people have told me I should retire, that I started at the top and should keep it that way."

Golden Gate Fields has forwarded information to the California Horse Racing Board and other racing investigatory agencies about a possible past-posting incident on its third race on the Sept. 26 card, according to officials of the track and regulatory organizations.