LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The field for the Grade 2 Clark Handicap is beginning to take shape as nominations for the annual fall-meet highlight were released early this week, and to no one's surprise, Todd Pletcher figures to have a say in how the race shakes out.

Pletcher, well on his way to a fourth straight Eclipse Award as top trainer, has as many as three horses ready for the $500,000 Clark - A.P. Arrow, Fairbanks, and Magna Graduate - although he has told Churchill officials he might run only two of them.

Churchill Downs has dropped its recently announced policy of reserving the right to test horses who management had suspected were scratched for inappropriate reasons.

Churchill's general manager, Jim Gates, said Nov. 4 that the track sought to report trainers or veterinarians to the stewards when blood-testing evidence was found to expose bogus scratches, but the chief steward, John Veitch, said this week that he had no authority to act on those reports.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - It was a damp and gray morning here at Woodbine on Wednesday and trainer Malcolm Pierce was battling a terrible cold.

But at least Pierce could envision some warm and sunny days ahead as he was planning to depart from Woodbine on Thursday and be in New Orleans at Fair Grounds in time to greet his first load of shippers.

"The first 12 leave Friday, and five more on Monday," said Pierce. "We're going to get busy down there pretty quick."

A catalog of 187 broodmares, weanlings, yearlings, and horses of racing age has been issued for the Fasig-Tipton Texas sale to be held at Lone Star Park on Dec. 9.

The sale is sponsored by the Texas Thoroughbred Association, and it will begin at 11 a.m. Central.

* Going Ballistic is scheduled to ship from Remington to Churchill Downs on Friday, said his trainer, Donnie Von Hemel. The winner of the Super Derby and Oklahoma Derby, he will run next in the Grade 2 Clark on Nov. 23.

Costa Rising, who owns one of the year's best Beyer Speed Figures, will make his first start since September in Saturday night's $100,000 Gold Cup at Delta Downs. The 1 1/16-mile race is one of four Louisiana-bred stakes on the card. The races are expected to produce starters for the Louisiana Champions Day program at Fair Grounds on Dec. 8.

Ohio racetracks and horsemen have failed so far to reach an agreement on racing dates and shared purse revenue for 2008, jeopardizing Thistledown racetrack's ability to take simulcast bets in 2009.

The agreement needs the approval of all seven racetracks in Ohio and the groups representing harness and Thoroughbred horsemen in the state. Thistledown and the Ohio Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association have refused to sign the agreement, contending that the deal would result in subsidies for harness purses.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Argentina has spent the last year and a half knocking heads with the best turf fillies in America, with mixed results. Although she finished second or third in three Grade 1 races, the Irish-bred 5-year-old mare has gone winless in her nine starts - all carrying a Grade 1 or 2 ranking - since being imported from France.

What would appear to be a final chance for Argentina to become a graded stakes winner will come Saturday when she goes to the post as the 120-pound highweight in the Grade 3 Cardinal Handicap at Churchill Downs.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The sixth race last Saturday at Hollywood Park was expected to be a showdown between two of the more well-regarded 2-year-old maidens in California. But the seven-furlong race fell apart when even-money Zetterberg scratched at the gate and the first-time starter Signature Move ran like a typical green rookie and finished third.

It would be a mistake to count out either colt, and the connections of both remain as confident after the race as they were going in.

MIAMI - The landscape in the local 2-year-old division changed dramatically Saturday in the 1:24.32 it took He's Eze to upset the Jack Price Juvenile Stakes.

He's Eze defeated a field that included reigning local 2-year-old kingpin Wise Answer along with the previously undefeated New York invader Smoke'n Coal. He's Eze's performance surprised most of the betting public - he paid $63.60 - as well as his trainer, Terry Oliver.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Wild Gams, coming off a ninth-place finish in the inaugural Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, will be looking to strut her stuff in the Bessarabian here at Woodbine on Nov. 25.

The $150,000 Bessarabian, a seven-furlong race, is the last stakes of the meeting for the filly-and-mare division, and Wild Gams was slated to check in late this week.