Lone Star Park in Texas plans to cut purses across the board by 10 percent beginning May 8, citing declining wagering revenue because of a blackout of the track's signal on account-wagering platforms, the track said Tuesday.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Only 59 horses posted timed workouts at Arlington on a cold, gray Tuesday morning, and even that was the highest number working on any given day since Arlington reopened its track for training last Wednesday. Still, the horses are out there - some 1,300 of them on the Arlington backstretch as of Tuesday afternoon - and 92 were entered Tuesday for Friday's opening-day program here.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Fire Wood would look better Thursday at Hollywood Park except for a conspicuous liability noted by trainer Ron Ellis: "He runs second a lot."

When he runs 1 1/4 miles on the main track Thursday in race 3, Fire Wood enters with 2 wins and 12 second-place finishes from 28 starts. Nonetheless, the 6-year-old Fire Wood looks like a logical contender in the second-level optional $62,500 claimer.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Trainer Larry Jones entered Eight Belles in Friday's $500,000 Kentucky Oaks just in case his filly drew a bad post in the Kentucky Derby. His insurance policy, however, arguably lost much of its value after Eight Belles was assigned the extreme outside post position in a full field of 12 3-year-old fillies drawn Tuesday at Churchill Downs for the Grade 1, 1 1/8-mile Oaks.

As expected, Jones entered Eight Belles in the Oaks along with Proud Spell, who will break from post 8 and will likely be favored should her uncoupled stablemate run in the Derby as planned.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Though the members of the International Equine Acquisitions Holdings Stable will be preoccupied with the proceedings in Kentucky on Saturday, they will be very interested in at least one race at Belmont Park.

Irish Smoke, winner of last year's Grade 1 Spinaway at Saratoga, will be making her first start for IEAH when she runs in Saturday's Grade 3, $200,000 Nassau County Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.

Keeneland Race Course on Monday released a full business report that revealed average all-sources handle at its 16-day spring meet was down 11 percent over the corresponding 2007 meet, while average ontrack handle was down nearly 6 percent despite an increase in average attendance of 6 percent.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Lava Man's losing streak continued into 2008 with a third-place finish in the Khaled Stakes for statebreds on Sunday, but trainer Doug O'Neill said his faith in the 7-year-old multi-millionaire gelding has not wavered.

Lava Man is winless in four starts since his third consecutive win in the Hollywood Gold Cup last June.

A cooperative of racetracks on the Eastern Seaboard has broken off negotiations on a simulcasting agreement with the New York Racing Association for the rights to accept wagers on Belmont Park, the cooperative said on Monday.

Belmont Park’s popular spring-summer meet opens on Wednesday. The executive director of the cooperative – which includes 16 member tracks in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire – said the cooperative was unwilling to pay the rate that NYRA was seeking for the Belmont signal.

Goinwest posted a mild surprise in the $50,000 Dwight D. Patterson Handicap, one of five stakes run at Turf Paradise for Arizona-breds. Trained by Brian Pitnick for the 1 1/16-mile turf event, Goinwest edged away under O.A. Martinez Jr. to win by 1 3/4 lengths. Hey Slick rallied from far back to be second. Social Order, the 8-5 favorite, finished fourth in the field of 10. Goinwest ($8.60) ran the 1 1/16 miles on turf in 1:42.82.

The Roll Reroll stable, trainer Kelly Von Hemel, and jockey Eddie Razo Jr. took both of Prairie Meadows stakes races on Saturday night.

Lindsey's Wish won a hard-fought stretch duel with the previously undefeated Amazing Tale to take the Goldfinch by a neck. Lindsey's Wish ($4) covered the six furlongs in 1:10.12

In the Golden Circle Stakes, Maya's Storm $3.20 overpowered his five rivals to win by a widening three lengths over the pacesetting Grand Sensation in 1:09.37.