INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Garrett Gomez, the Eclipse Award winner as the nation's leading rider in 2007 and 2008, is returning to Southern California to ride on a full-time basis on June 7, his agent, Ron Anderson, said Thursday.

Gomez, 37, who is currently riding in New York, wants to spend more time with his wife and two children, who live in Southern California year round, Anderson said.

"It's just more of an issue of him being comfortable and wanting to be there," Anderson said from New York. "He's really missing his kids."

Track maintenance supervisor Ian Gamble had a problem after the seventh race last Friday at Canterbury Park when a 70-foot section of the outside rail was damaged when the starting gate was being moved from the backstretch chute to the front of the track.

Gamble and his crew worked until late into the morning hours Saturday repairing the rail. Following the suggestion of Canterbury Park president and general manager Randy Sampson, Gamble used the rail from the turf course as a temporarily stopgap until replacement rails could be delivered.

The father-son riding duo of Luis Ranilla and son Jose have put on quite a show during the early part of Lincoln State Fair season and sit atop the jockey standings after two weekends of racing. The pair were involved in a couple of one-two finishes last weekend that were separated by less than a neck.

Leading owner Maggi Moss currently has more than 30 horses at Prairie Meadows, most of whom reside in trainer Chris Richard's barn. She recently received great news about their most successful horse, the accomplished sprinter Native Ruler.

Victorious in seven of his last eight starts on dirt, including last June's Iowa Sprint Handicap in which he collected $75,000, the 5-year-old Native Ruler has been sidelined since taking Oaklawn Park's King Cotton Stakes by 1 1/2 lengths on Jan. 31.

Evangeline Downs continues to buck the national trend of small fields and reduced racing calendars as it lives up to its self-proclaimed billing of "Home of the Biggest Fields."

Since its current meeting began on April 8, Evangeline has averaged more than 11 runners per race, a remarkable number by today's industry standards.

Native Ruler may return from an injury in the Iowa Sprint on June 27.P

Plans are being finalized for trainer Wesley Ward to bring five 2-year-olds to River Downs for a public workout on the turf course between races Sunday. The horses are the five Ward plans to to race at Royal Ascot in England.

"I had them on the turf course at Keeneland last week," Ward said, "but River has a beautiful turf course and I think it may be more like the European courses. I want to make sure they take to it okay before shipping them all the way over there."

ELMONT, N.Y. - With no clear-cut favorite and interest high from the connections of several 3-year-olds, this year's running of the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on Memorial Day could draw as many as 15 horses when entries are taken on Friday.

MIAMI - It's a Bird is listed as the 122-pound highweight for Monday's $100,000 Memorial Day Handicap at Calder, but it will be Finallymadeit who is likely to be the starting highweight under 121 pounds in the Grade 3 event.

It's a Bird, one of three horses trainer Marty Wolfson nominated to the Memorial Day, will pass the race in quest of a more lucrative payday the same afternoon in the Grade 3 Lone Star Handicap.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It's on.

The first showdown between Zenyatta, the undefeated champion older female of 2008, and her stablemate Life Is Sweet, the impressive winner of three major stakes for older females at Santa Anita earlier this year, is set for Saturday's $150,000 Milady Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Both were entered on Wednesday and trainer John Shirreffs confirmed they are intended starters.

"Zenyatta needs to start," he said. "She needs to get going. Life Is Sweet is doing so well that we need to run her."

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - The payoff for resisting the Triple Crown's siren call could start coming Saturday for the connections of Giant Oak.

Despite turning in his top performance at 3 by finishing second in the Illinois Derby on April 4 at Hawthorne, Giant Oak was not sent to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, and instead went to Arlington Park. The plan was a run at the Mid-America Triple, Arlington's three-race turf series - and that plan swings into action Saturday.