Pyro will have to overcome the outside post in a field of 12 if he is to win the Grade 2, $500,000 Indiana Derby on Saturday at Hoosier Park. Pyro is the 5-2 morning-line favorite in the Indiana Derby, one of three stakes on Hoosier Park's biggest racing day of the year.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - It might be fairly said that the racing business has been a microcosm of the American economy this year. Substantial declines in handle at Churchill Downs, Saratoga, Del Mar, and Arlington Park were followed by similarly disappointing numbers at the Keeneland September yearling sales.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Casino Drive, the winner of the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park in May who missed the Belmont Stakes in June because of a bruised foot, arrived in California on Wednesday to prepare for the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Oct. 25.

Thursday, Casino Drive was in quarantine at Hollywood Park. He was scheduled to be released from quarantine on Friday and will have his first exercise on the racetrack on Saturday or Sunday, according to Nobutaka Tada, spokesman for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto and trainer Kasuo Fujisawa.

Sandburr could be making the penultimate start of his career Saturday night in the $100,000 Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame Stakes at Retama Park.

The 1 1/16-mile turf race is one of six restricted stakes on the card worth a total of $500,000. The card is the richest of the meet and it complements the inductions of Bill Allen, Bobby Cox, Dorothy Scharbauer and Joe Straus Jr. into the Texas Horse Racing Hall.

Despite a 2 percent decrease in average all-sources handle during its 91-day meeting that ended Sunday, Emerald Downs will distribute a retroactive 4 percent increase in non-stakes purses, the track's president, Ron Crockett, announced Wednesday. The increase will provide horsemen with an additional $300,000 in purses.

Average daily handle from all sources, including bets on incoming simulcasts, was $1,381,572. The handle on Emerald Downs races increased about 3.5 percent to $868,640 per day. But there was an 11 percent decrease in wagering on out-of-state races, to $512,932.

STICKNEY, Ill. - An obvious strategy for playing the early days of the Hawthorne fall meet would be to look for the dirt horses. There certainly exist animals in the local populace that either struggled over Polytrack at Arlington, or were given light campaigns this summer while waiting for a more serious effort during the fall meet at Hawthorne.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Despite the fact there were three winning favorites in the sequence, nobody correctly picked six for the third consecutive card at Belmont Park, resulting in a monster carryover of $540,334 entering Friday's card.

The wager has not been hit since last Saturday.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Two years after Nobiz Like Shobiz finished second in the Champagne Stakes, Hello Broadway will try to one-up his older half-brother when he runs in Saturday's 137th renewal of this key race for 2-year-old colts.

BOSSIER CITY, La. - Three Louisiana Downs riders were transported to a local hospital following a nasty spill in Thursday's fifth race. The four horses directly involved in the incident all escaped serious injury and were walked off the turf course.

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - The 22nd renewal of the Best of Ohio Championship for statebreds will be presented at Thistledown this Saturday. The Best of Ohio is made up of five stakes with a total value of $425,000.

The top events are a pair of $l00,000 races, the 1 1/4-mile Endurance and the 1 1/8-mile Distaff. A trio of $75,000 races - the six-furlong Sprint, and the John Galbreath Memorial and Juvenile, both at 1o1/16 miles for 2-year-olds - complete the lineup.