LEXINGTON, Ky. - Friday's Grade 3, $125,000 Doubledogdare at Keeneland unfolded like many races over the Polytrack surface - that is, without much pace. Only this time, in contrast to the synthetic track's reputation, the early leader lasted.

Carriage Trail, under leading rider Kent Desormeaux, was able to get away with a soft opening quarter-mile in 25.27 seconds and a half-mile in 49.04, and had plenty in reserve to turn back several rivals before pulling away to a 1 1/4-length victory over Say You Will in the 1 1/16-mile race before a crowd of 20,393.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Hollywood Park will begin its spring-summer meeting on Wednesday with a purse increase of 4 to 5 percent for maiden special weight and allowance races.

The purse for maiden special weight races have been increased $2,000, to $48,000 for sprinters and $50,000 for races around two turns. Allowance races have been increased $2,000 or $3,000, depending on eligibility and distance. For example, allowance races for nonwinners of one "other than" have been increased $2,000, while allowance races for nonwinners of three have been increased $3,000.

STICKNEY, Ill. - Fort Prado, followers of the Chicago racing circuit know, but there will be more than just the one good turf horse under trainer Chris Block's Arlington Park shed row this spring and summer.

For the first few months of the year, 3-year-olds and older horses are largely kept separate in allowance events, competing in races restricted to their own age groups. Then the spring arrives, and races for 3-year-olds and up start being scheduled, and it becomes time for the youngsters to take on older opponents.

That time is Sunday for five 3-year-old fillies who will take on two 4-year-olds in the featured eighth race at Lone Star Park, a $25,000 first-level allowance at a mile on the main track.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - It has been 13 years since trainer Sam DiPasquale won a stakes race, with the talented Holly Regent taking the Ontario Matron, Belle Mahone, and Algoma here at Woodbine in 1995.

While that drought seems less dramatic considering that DiPasquale has had just 15 stakes starters in the intervening years, it still would make success all the sweeter if the trainer could click with Marina Ballerina in Sunday's $150,000 Whimsical.

DiPasquale will be saddling Marina Ballerina for the first time in the six-furlong Whimsical. She hasn't run since Feb. 2.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita ends its four-month winter-spring meeting on Sunday, with the future of the track's synthetic racing surface unclear and trainers and owners divided on whether to install a dirt track or stay with a synthetic surface.

When the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting begins on Sept. 24, it is unclear what surface will be in place on a track that will host the Breeders' Cup races on Oct. 24 and 25.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Anybody who likes betting races with big fields on the turf will love being at Gulfstream Park on Sunday for closing day of the 2008 meeting. All 11 races on Sunday's card will be contested on the grass. Ten of those 11 events have full fields of 12, the other goes with 11 starters.

AUBURN, Wash. - Trainer Doris Harwood is coming off a dream season at Emerald Downs, smashing the previous record for stakes wins with an even dozen and ranking as the leading trainer in money won with $688,443 in purse earnings.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Prop Me Up was on a farm in Ocala, Fla., following her sixth-place finish in the Sunshine Millions Distaff early this winter when trainer Joe Orseno informed the mare's owner, Silly Goose Racing Stable, that the racing office had put up a $75,000 stakes for statebreds that would fit her perfectly on the next-to-last day of the 2008 Gulfstream Park meet.

Even if you turn the volume control on your television or computer to its maximum setting, you won't hear anything during the running of the season's first race at Finger Lakes on Saturday afternoon.

In honor of Ross Morton, the regular track announcer during the track's first 46 years, there will be no live call for race 1, a 4 1/2-furlong sprint for older claimers. Morton, 74, died following a stroke in February.

His replacement, former longtime Northern California race caller Tony Calo, will succeed Morton, starting with Saturday's second race.