ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Disfunction made the successful transition into stakes company when capturing the Grade 3 Vigil over seven furlongs here May 19.

On Sunday, Disfunction will be looking to continue his upward mobility in the $150,000 Bold Venture, a 6 1/2-furlong race for 3-year-olds and upward that attracted a field of eight.

"He's doing very, very well," said Julia Carey, who trains the 4-year-old gelding. "Everything's going according to plan."

That plan called for Disfunction to proceed directly from the Vigil to the Bold Venture, a nine-week gap.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Carole Chaiken was a winner at both Lone Star Park and Hollywood Park last weekend. She was in Texas because Dixie Dot Com, a horse she raced in partnership with her husband, Don, and Bart and Ronelle Heller, was being inducted into the Lone Star Park Hall of Fame. And while she was here, Chaiken watched on simulcast as Premium Quality, one of 33 horses she has in training, won a maiden special weight at Hollywood Park.

Trainers, jockeys, post positions, and much more. Click the link below to download the 2008 Saratoga Players' Guide comprehensive stats.

(PDF)

Steve Asmussen

Steve Asmussen set a record for North American trainers with 555 wins in 2004; with nearly 250 wins before Memorial Day this year, the trainer of reigning Horse of the Year Curlin threatens to raise the bar higher still.

Asmussen holds titles at Lone Star Park, where he is the all-time leader; Fair Grounds; and Churchill Downs, where he set a record with 45 wins at last year's spring-summer meet, including more than half of the 2-year-old races in which he had starters.

On the eve of Saratoga's 140th season, your best bet is to expect the unexpected. A summer at the Spa defies early predictions and generalizations, and the only sure thing is that no two seasons are ever the same.

While established horses receive most of the Saratoga spotlight in races like the Travers, Whitney, and Woodward, the Spa offers handicappers an opportunity to find future stars in value-laden baby races.

EDMONTON, Alberta – Greenwood Meadow showed enough promise last spring for trainer Dale Saunders to dispatch him along the Canadian Derby trail, a route that Footprint successfully traversed on his way to Alberta horse of the year honors.

Greenwood Meadow was no match for Footprint in their three meetings last year, but his 2–6–1 record from 11 starts banked $64,280.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Handicappers will have to make a tough choice Sunday in the 1 1/16-mile second-level optional claiming feature. They must decide between the proven stakes horse Shacane, who has won four of his six starts going 1 1/16 miles, or Seminole Brave, who has been brilliant in his last two starts but has never raced beyond 6 1/2 furlongs.

Throw in the multiple route stakes winner Ookashada, plus the sprinter Enforcement, and you have an excellent race. The race has a $50,000 claiming option, and drew seven horses.

AURORA, Colo. – Singin Vicar goes from a statebred stakes win to open company in the $20,000 Colorado Derby Sunday at Arapahoe Park. The 1 1/16-mile derby attracted a field of nine, including the second- and third-place finishers behind Singin Vicar in the CTBA Derby here on July 4.

DEL MAR, Calif. - By virtue of his experience, jockey Garrett Gomez is an expert on riding North American synthetic tracks. From California to Kentucky to Illinois, he has firsthand encounters on virtually all of them.

What Gomez encountered at Del Mar on Wednesday's opening day led him to believe that the racetrack has solved the problems that plagued the 2007 season, the first year the Polytrack surface was used. Last year, the surface differed greatly from morning to afternoon and produced slow times.