PHOENIX - Back in January 1956, Walter Cluer saw his dream come true. An area of desert a few miles north of downtown Phoenix, previously barren, became Turf Paradise. The Phoenix track opens its doors for the 52nd time Friday, fittingly with a stakes named to honor its founder.

Friday's $45,000 Walter R. Cluer Memorial, at 7 1/2 furlongs on the turf, kicks off the meet, which runs 156 days and concludes May 4. The track will hold live racing primarily on a Thursday-through-Tuesday basis. Full-card simulcasting from around the country will be offered seven days a week.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Bobby Frankel was inducted into the racing Hall of Fame in 1995, so it's not like he never accomplished anything prior to the 1999 Keeneland fall meet.

The Phipps Stable and trainer Shug McGaughey will seek their second win in four years in the Grade 3, $400,000 Indiana Oaks Friday night at Hoosier Park. Thirteen 3-year-old fillies was entered Tuesday for the Oaks, which begins the biggest weekend of racing at Hoosier Park, highlighted by the Grade 2, $500,000 Indiana Derby on Saturday night.

Boca Grande, a dual graded stakes winner in New York, will attempt to follow in the footsteps of another Phipps homebred, Daydreaming, who won the Oaks in 2004.

MIAMI - You can bet trainer Steve Standridge is glad the 2007 Breeders' Cup is being run at Monmouth Park and not across the river in New York.

The Standridge-trained Mach Ride likely earned himself a trip to the BC Sprint with his fourth-place finish in Saturday's Grade 1 Vosburgh Handicap at Belmont Park. Mach Ride was beaten just a neck and a nose for second by Talent Search and Discreet Cat despite a slow start that forced the Calder-based 4-year-old to rally wide and from last place in the six-furlong Vosburgh.

AUBURN, Wash. - A new high-water mark for total average daily handle was one of several records established at the 2007 Emerald Downs meeting, which concluded Sunday after 91 days of racing.

The track posted an increase of 2.3 percent on wagering from all sources, including full-card simulcasts, and a .5 percent decline in all-sources betting on Emerald's live races. The track handled $1,415,172 per day from all sources, with an average of $839,018 per day bet on Emerald's races.

The track's president, Ron Crockett, said the meet outperformed his expectations.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Like racehorses, race meets typically begin reasonably calmly, with the thought being that at least a little something should be saved for the end.

But the fall at Keeneland - at least the stakes program - is more like a Quarter Horse race, owing to how the calendar falls in relation to the Breeders' Cup. Starting Friday, nine stakes - including several major preps toward the Oct. 26-27 Breeders' Cup - will be run during the three-day weekend that opens the 17-day fall meet.

ARCADIA, Calif. - A graded stakes winner co-owned by Frank Stronach and trained by Bobby Frankel might not run in a Grade 1 stakes Sunday at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meet because of the trainer's displeasure with the speed of the Cushion Track surface at Stronach's flagship track.

Frankel is the new trainer of Silent Name, whose three U.S. wins for Gary Mandella include Grade 2's on turf and Polytrack. Silent Name was transferred to Frankel last month and is working so well at Hollywood Park that Frankel will consider supplementing him for $6,000 to the six-furlong Ancient Title.

Forty Acres is set to bring his front-running style to the Oklahoma Derby. The $300,000 race at Remington Park on Oct. 21 is the next scheduled start for Forty Acres, who pulled off a wire job in the $100,000 Prelude at Louisiana Downs in August, then set the pace and finished seventh in last month's Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby.

The inaugural 25-day meet at Presque Isle Downs, the Erie, Pa., racetrack offering slots-enriched purses, attracted an average of $585,680 a day in wagering from all sources. Purse distribution, estimated before the meet at $500,000 a day, averaged $432,074. The meet began Sept. 1 and ended on Saturday.

The track was the first to use a Tapeta synthetic surface, which was generally well received by trainers and jockeys, said Debbie Howells, the track's director of racing at Presque Isle Downs.

Buoyed partly by a matchup at Turfway Park between the top two finishers from the Kentucky Derby, a crowd estimated as the largest in the 14-year history of the Kentucky Cup turned out Saturday to watch Hard Spun defeat Street Sense in the signature event in the five-race series, the Kentucky Cup Classic, and wagering increased from the 2006 card.

Turfway does not charge admission and therefore does not have an official turnstile count, but officials said Monday that their estimate was 13,640 on Saturday, exceeding the previous Kentucky Cup high of 11,223 in 2003.