LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Nine graded stakes, all but one of them guaranteeing the winner a spot in the Breeders' Cup, are set for the three-day opening weekend at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., where the 17-day fall meet will get away to its customary fast start Friday.

Two stakes will be run on both the Friday and Sunday cards, bookending a Saturday program that will include five stakes, three of them Grade 1's. All nine stakes except the Woodford on Saturday carry Win and You're In designations toward the Nov. 6-7 Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Luck goes a long way in the up and down business of horse racing. What seemed like a bad deal at the time could turn out to be a big break for owner-breeder Mike Anderson when he runs Clear to Canada in the $100,000 Jack Diamond Futurity at Hastings Sunday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - One mile might have been too short and 1 1/4 miles too long for Forest Uproar.

But the 1 1/8 miles of the Carotene Stakes could be just right for Forest Uproar, who looms the choice of nine Ontario-sired 3-year-old fillies entered here in Sunday's turf feature.

Forest Uproar is coming off a third-place finish in the Ontario Colleen, a one-mile turf stakes in which she was beaten a total of 1 1/2 lengths by the streaking Lady Shakespeare and a neck by the previously undefeated Carem Crescent.

Jockey Curt Bourque and his son David have had the rare opportunity to ride against each other on a regular basis this past month at Louisiana Downs and will be sad to see the meet close Sunday. When it does, Curt will head to New Orleans to prepare for the opening of Fair Grounds, and David will go to Delta Downs to set up shop for the winter-spring meet in Vinton, La.

"We're trying to make the most of our last few days here," Curt said Friday.

MIAMI - Rain or shine, Lettie's Relic looks like the one to beat in Sunday's $26,000 allowance feature, scheduled to be run at five furlongs on the turf as the eighth race on a 10-race program.

Lettie's Relic has yet to win a race in six tries this season, but the versatile stretch-runner - a stakes winner in 2008 - has held his own against some top-level competition on both turf and dirt all season and is long overdue to finally visit the winner's circle Sunday.

FORT ERIE, Ontario - Winston Wilkinson, 61, has been training Thoroughbreds for over 20 years and has been a mainstay in the shed rows of Fort Erie. His quiet, laid-back demeanor, together with his friendly smile and helping hand, is very much appreciated by his fellow Fort Erie horsemen.

Wilkinson and his wife, Carol, decided to take up the racing game in the mid-1980s after buying a small farm in Smithville, Ontario, an hour's drive from the Fort Erie track. From that moment on, the love of the Thoroughbred has continued to shape their lives.

Race 3, first leg

ARCADIA, Calf. - "It's a two-horse race, isn't it?" trainer Bob Baffert said.

He was referring to race 6 Friday, a maiden sprint for 2-year-olds in which Baffert second-time starter Macias faces John Sadler-trained second-timer Via Verde.

Baffert and Sadler have dominated the California 2-year-old division this season, which makes it appropriate that the first good special-weight of fall includes two promising maidens from the highest-profile stables.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Perhaps the final three months of the year will be kinder to California-breds than the first nine months of 2009.

So far this year, no California-bred has won a Grade 1 race. By this time last year, there had been four. On a brighter note, a California-bred 2-year-old, Strike the Tiger, won the Windsor Castle Stakes at the prestigious Royal Ascot meeting in England in June, about the last thing anyone would have forecast at the start of the year.