LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It was in 2001 that Churchill Downs began the practice of surrounding the Stephen Foster Handicap with other graded stakes, further perpetuating the multiple-stakes packaging concept employed by most major North American racetracks for their biggest days of racing.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Einstein was assigned post 3 as the 2-1 morning-line favorite in a field of eight older horses set to clash Saturday in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap, the annual highlight of the post-Kentucky Derby segment of the Churchill Downs spring meet.

Einstein will be trying for a third straight Grade 1 triumph - all on different racing surfaces - in the $600,000 Foster. The 7-year-old Brazilian-bred horse won the last month at Churchill.

Einstein will be ridden by Julien Leparoux.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Tin Top Cat must have done the math. For her division, the purse of a maiden special weight at Lone Star Park is $23,000. But she held out for the bigger bucks last Saturday, winning her maiden instead in the track's $88,740 fillies division of the Texas Thoroughbred Association Sales Futurity.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Wednesday morning, trainer Rob Gilker was not only savoring his win with Bank Emblem in the $51,000 John Longden last Saturday, he was also looking forward to running Tommy Danzigger in the $50,000 CTHS Sales Stakes on Sunday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Mr. Foricos Two U has made each of his four starts in Ontario-sired company and has never run in a stakes race. But, based on an impressive win in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race here May 27, Mr. Foricos Two U is heading into the $1 million Queen's Plate with the look of a live longshot.

Trying two turns for the first time, Mr. Foricos Two U raced in seventh place early in the field of nine before rallying for a going-away two-length victory.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Einstein lives in the stall closest to the office in the Helen Pitts stable at Churchill Downs. His name is first of some 40 horses on the wall-mounted dry-erase board that Pitts uses to keep track of training schedules. And there are not one, but two, large white-on-green paddock placards bearing his name from previous Churchill stakes displayed prominently in the office.

Lest there be any doubt, Einstein is the big horse in the barn.

"He's my man," said Pitts, beaming.

Penn National began closing its pools after the first horse has been loaded into the gate starting on Saturday because of two incidents within the previous two weeks in which the pools failed to close.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Song of Navarone barely survived his 3-year-old year. After winning the $600,000 WinStar Derby at Sunland Park in March 2007, the colt came down with a bacterial infection in his stomach that ended his campaign and almost ended his career.

"He was real sick, he was on his deathbed," trainer Henry Dominguez said.

It took Song of Navarone a year and a half to make it back, but since returning he has won 5 of 7 at Sunland, Zia Park and Lone Star and boosted his record to 8 for 12 with earnings of $667,158.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Trainer Cash Asmussen has won two of the three juvenile stakes offered so far this year in Texas. Now, he has designs on some upcoming 2-year-old races in Louisiana and Kansas.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Injured jockey Rene Douglas has been moved out of the intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, and Douglas's overall health has continued to improve since he was hurt May 23 in the Arlington Matron Stakes. But while Douglas is regaining strength in his upper body - speaking, eating solid food, and moving without great discomfort - he still cannot move his legs because of a spinal injury.