Prairie Meadows begins its Thoroughbred-Quarter Horse mixed meet Friday night. Four Quarter Horse races will be added to the end of each race card.

Prairie Meadows had a daily purse distribution of approximately $222,000 during its Thoroughbred meet but the mixed meet purses will average $141,000 a day with $77,000 of that number paid out on the six daily Thoroughbred races.

Leading rider Terry Thompson plans on riding the mixed meet, as do Glenn Corbet, Tim Doocy, and Alex Birzer, who all finished in the top five of the standings at the Thoroughbred meet.

With the 37-day meet at Lincoln State Fair winding down this weekend, pre-race analyst Angela Hermann finishes another chapter in her racetrack career.

Hermann, 22, makes her home in Eagan, Minn., and was raised just down the road from Canterbury Park in Burnsville. She started working at the track when she was 16. Her love of the races came even earlier.

"My parents aren't involved in racing at all. The first time we went to the races I was 9 or 10 and just fell in love with it," Hermann said.

Summer is 2-year-old season at Evangeline Downs and last week's two divisions of the D. S. "Shine" Young Futurity helped sort out the pecking order of the local class of juveniles. The Stanley Roberts-trained Shutupanddance captured the filly division and Not Grounded, conditioned by John Gelner, won the colts and geldings final.

Arguably the most talented youngster seen on the Legends Night program, however, was not in a stakes, but in a Louisiana-bred maiden race earlier on the card.

Canterbury Park had its highest attendance and handle figures for a Thursday since the track re-opened in 1994 on the July 3 card, which featured a concert and fireworks following the races. Combined handle totaled $937,000 and attendance was reported at 14,237, though Canterbury Park vice president of operations Eric Halstrom joked that if all the children in attendance had been counted the crowd may well have totaled 30,000.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Behindatthebar, the winner of the Grade 2 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland in April, was not entered for Saturday's $350,000 Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park because of a minor foot injury, according to Sasha Sanan of Padua Stables.

Behindatthebar popped an abscess near the coronet band of his left foreleg earlier this week, which prevented the colt from being sent from New York to California for the race, according to Sanan, Padua's racing manager.

A trainer and owner with longstanding ties to the Delaware Handicap, which will be run for the 71st time Sunday, are among the second class of inductees to Delaware Park's Wall of Fame.

Virgil "Buddy" Raines, whose 65-year career included two wins in the Del Cap, and Foxcatcher Farms, whose owner William du Pont, won the inaugural running of Delaware Park's most prestigious stakes, are among five inductees announced on Tuesday.

A nine-month experiment that allows the four account-wagering providers licensed in California to take bets on all of the state's racetracks may end with the conclusion of the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting on Sunday, leaving the customers of two providers - XpressBet and Twinspires - unable to bet on Del Mar when that track opens on Wednesday.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Curlin, the 2007 Horse of the Year, has not picked an easy spot to make his turf debut, as Saturday's Grade 1, $500,000 Man o' War Stakes at Belmont Park is developing into one of the top turf races of the year in North America.

Curlin will be taking on two Breeders' Cup Turf winners in the Man o' War: Better Talk Now (2004) and Red Rocks (2006). Andrew Byrnes, Belmont's stakes coordinator, also lists Grand Couturier, Interpatation, Sudan, and True Cause as likely starters. The Man o' War will be televised on ESPNews.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - There's no doubt that trainer Greg Fox comes from a slightly different position than most horse trainers. Fox spent most of his working life as an equine veterinarian, and it's the rare vet who makes the jump to training. Moreover, Fox - who has been a head trainer three years now - brings an outsider's perspective to the training game.

BOSSIER CITY, La. - There were signs that a sleeping giant may be waking up this past weekend, as trainer Pat Mouton sent out three winners Sunday at Louisiana Downs. Mouton also had a winner on Friday night's Louisiana Legends Night program at Evangeline Downs when Howdy Ho set a track record for five furlongs in the $50,000 Attaway Darbonne Stakes.

"The guys at the barn were getting a little down, a little disappointed the last couple of weeks," Mouton said. "I just told them to hang in there, things will pick back up. Nothing like a three-bagger for morale."