The handle at Assiniboia Downs made across-the-board gains at the 2007 meeting, which ended last Sunday.

Total handle for the 69-day season was $7,824,090, up 8 percent from $7,244,813 in 2006, with the average daily handle up to $113,393 from $104,578.

Ontrack wagering for the season increased 2 percent to $5,586,141 from $5,473,085, while offtrack wagering went up 26 percent, to $2,237,949 from $1,771,728.

Hollywood Park will offer a shorter fall meeting this year compared to 2006, but a more lucrative stakes schedule that has been increased by one event, to 23 races.

The richest race at the Inglewood, Calif., track will be the $750,000-guaranteed CashCall Futurity, formerly known as the Hollywood Futurity. One of six Grade 1 stakes at the meeting, the CashCall Futurity is being sponsored by the CashCall lending company for the first time. Last year, the Hollywood Futurity had a purse of $250,000-added and was worth $441,500.

ELMONT, N.Y. - One would have assumed that with the defection of Big Brown there would have been more interest in Saturday's $75,000 Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont Park. But some horsemen had already made plans to run in other races, leaving the 1 1/16-mile turf race with a field of six, three of whom were cross-entered in Friday's World Appeal Stakes at the Meadowlands.

Trainer Gary Contessa said Thursday he will likely scratch Carry the Day from the World Appeal to run in the Pilgrim, which serves as a prep for the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Monmouth Park on Oct. 26.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Ice Bear was trainer Mac Benson’s Queen’s Plate hopeful this spring, but the hopes were abandoned when the gelding disappointed him in two starts over Polytrack here at Woodbine.

Fast-forward to Sunday, and Ice Bear, who is coming off an impressive win over 1?1/16 miles on Polytrack, will be making his stakes debut on that surface in the $150,000 Ontario Derby, a 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-olds.

FLORENCE, Ky. - Even before the Turfway Park fall meet started Sept. 5, track president Bob Elliston mulled the possibilities of hosting a matchup between Street Sense and Hard Spun when the Kentucky Cup rolled around.

Elliston theorized that only one negative factor could be created with both horses entering the Kentucky Cup Classic - and even with that, there is a positive spinoff.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Owner K. K. Sangara one-upped his father, Terry, with a win by Celtic Dreamin in the Grade 3 British Columbia Derby at Hastings last Sunday.

Terry Sangara's best finish as an owner was in the 1979 B.C. Derby with K D's Knight, who finished second.

"I'm just happy to see one of us finally win the race," said Terry Sangara.

ERIE, Pa. - The two $100,000 stakes on the final day of the Presque Isle Downs meet Saturday are a microcosm of the 25-day season, as horses that have raced at a number of different tracks will come together in both the Fitz Dixon Memorial Juvenile and The HBPA Stakes.

The Fitz Dixon is for 2-year-olds at 6 1/2 furlongs and has attracted a field of nine. The HBPA, for fillies and mares at a mile and 70 yards, has 11 entrants, only three of whom have raced over the local Tapeta surface.

Gold Coyote, who owns one of the year's highest 2-year-old Beyer Speed Figures, is being freshened and will resume racing during the Fair Grounds meet in New Orleans, said his trainer, Bret Calhoun.

Gold Coyote, who earned a Beyer of 100 for his 10-length victory in the $125,000 Texas Stallion Stakes at Lone Star Park on July 7, last raced on Sept. 1. He finished fifth as the favorite in the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Futurity at Arlington Park. Calhoun said that Gold Coyote, making his first start outside of Texas, did not handle the Polytrack.

Carl Nafzger, the trainer of Kentucky Derby winner and Breeders' Cup Classic candidate Street Sense, will be inducted into the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame at Retama Park during a ceremony at the San Antonio-area track on Oct. 13.

"He was born and raised in Texas," Joe Straus Jr., chairman of Retama, said of Nafzger. "He was a rodeo cowboy before he was a trainer."

Oust's five-race win streak at Fairmount, which included a victory in the $45,000 Tex's Zing Handicap, was snapped last Saturday in the $16,560 Rare Vintage Handicap for older horses at 1 1/16 miles. Second choice Never Was ($7.20) was allowed an uncontested lead, and he held on gamely to post a neck victory over 7-1 shot Earths Vain Shadow, with Oust another half-length behind in third.