ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Nick Gonzalez currently is the top stakes-winning trainer at the meeting, with five wins.

Gonzalez will have a significant chance of adding to that total over the next few days, with contenders in Saturday's Steady Growth, Sunday's Woodbine Oaks, and Wednesday's Bold Ruckus.

Michael's Bad Boy, a 5-year-old gelding, will be making the 14th start of his career but his first stakes appearance in the $125,000 Steady Growth, a 1 1/16-mile race for Ontario-sired 3-year-olds and upward.

In an overt attempt to secure Curlin as a starter, Churchill Downs announced Wednesday that the purse for the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap on June 14 has been increased to $1 million from the original $750,000 level.

The additional $250,000 will not come from the horsemen's purse account, but will instead come from what Churchill is calling a marketing account set aside for a special circumstance. The race conditions have been rewritten to require that a Grade 1 winner must start in the race in order to pay out the extra $250,000.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The burden of past success forces Lava Man to carry top weight of 121 pounds Saturday in the Grade 1 Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap. But 119-pound second topweight Champs Elysees is expected to go favored in the 1 1/4-mile turf race. Both horses will have new riders, and both are expected to alter strategy after losing their most recent start.

AUBURN, Wash. - Margo's Gift has proven beyond doubt that he is an exceptional sprinter. He has won 6 of 7 sprint attempts, including the $250,000 Favorite Trick Stakes last fall at Monmouth Park.

Margo's Gift, a 3-year-old son of Polish Gift and the Knights Choice mare Burgundy Jones, underscored his sprint ability on Sunday, getting up in the final strides under Ricky Frazier to nail the pacesetting Easy Going Cecil by a neck in the 6 1/2-furlong Pepsi-Cola Handicap. Margo's Gift's arch-rival Gallon was another head back in third as the 6-5 favorite.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Bennie Stutts has gone back home to south Florida to attend to his regular string of horses stabled at Calder Race Course, but the Stutts stable star, Smooth Air, is back at his summer home at Arlington Park, where he will prepare for his next start, the June 27 Iowa Derby.

Eight Belles, this year's Kentucky Derby runner-up who was euthanized after suffering a catastrophic breakdown moments after the race, will be interred at the Kentucky Derby Museum at Churchill Downs, the track announced Tuesday.

The Churchill Downs Foundation and Eight Belles' owner, Rick Porter of Fox Hill Farm, also announced that each will contribute $25,000 to the Eight Belles Memorial Fund, established by Thoroughbred Charities of America, for continued research into racehorse injuries and toward the retraining of retired Thoroughbreds.

Keeneland Race Course will have a record $5.4 million stakes schedule for its fall meet that begins Oct. 3 and continues through Oct. 25, Keeneland announced Tuesday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Ballado Dancer, who was claimed for $10,000 here last June 29, has been named recipient of the Toronto Thoroughbred Racing Club's 2007 claimer of the year award.

The group will honor Ballado Dancer and its other champions of 2007 at its annual awards day here at Woodbine on June 15.

Ballado Dancer was dropping from a second-place finish at the $20,000 level when owner/trainer Marko Mesic filled out the claim slip.

MIAMI - The purse cuts that have taken a huge slice out of both the overnight races and stakes program since the meet began will not affect the inaugural Summit of Speed Preview card on June 10. The four sprint stakes on preview day, which are preps for the July 12 Summit of Speed card, will retain their original value of $100,000 each, in part because they are all heavily funded by the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association, which is putting up $180,000 of the $400,000 in purse money available in those events.

ELMONT, N.Y. - There will be more than 100,000 people at the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. It only seems as if they're all going through Michael Iavarone for tickets.

Iavarone, the co-president of the IEAH Stables partnership which co-owns Big Brown, said he has been hit up for more than 800 tickets.

"Five hundred in a tent, and 300 in the clubhouse, grandstand, and owner's box," he said.