Five-time defending national champion trainer Paul Jones, who oversees his operation from Los Alamitos Race Course about 10 months each year, arrived for his annual summer stay at Ruidoso Downs on Monday to see his stable, as usual, primed for qualifying efforts in this week's trials to the Grade 1, $625,000 Rainbow Futurity and Grade 1, $445,000 Rainbow Derby.

The 18 400-yard Rainbow Futurity trials are Friday afternoon and the three 440-yard Rainbow Derby trials will be held Saturday afternoon.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Sharon Barker spent part of her horse career as an endurance rider in 100-mile races. Nowadays, she has one of the quickest 3-year-old fillies on the grounds at Lone Star Park.

Barker co-owns and trains Moneyinmywranglers. A winner of all three of her starts at the meet, the filly is the one to beat Saturday in the $50,000 Valor Farm Stakes. The race will be run over six furlongs, and it is for 3-year-old fillies bred in Texas. In all, there are six restricted stakes worth a cumulative $475,000 here Saturday as part of the annual Stars of Texas Day.

The lineup has been set for the Cajun Jockey Challenge July 13 at Evangeline Downs. The riding competition will cap a daylong celebration of the region's rich heritage among the nation's jockeys, both past and present.

Fresh off a track-record mutuel handle of more than $2.2 million last Saturday night on Louisiana Legends Night - an event that brought together the best Louisiana-bred equine athletes - the focus now will shift to those riders with Louisiana bloodlines.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - If he hasn't already broken the record by then, trainer Steve Asmussen figures to be taking an edge Saturday when a pair of Grade 3 stakes for 2-year-olds are run at Churchill Downs.

Asmussen, who is closing in on the Churchill mark for most winners at a spring meet, has the favorites and multiple entries in both the $150,000 Bashford Manor Stakes and the $100,000 Debutante Stakes here Saturday.

Three rather accomplished Japanese females will attempt to duplicate the 2006 feat of Dance in the Mood by winning the CashCall Mile at Hollywood Park on Friday, but if recent form is to be believed, it is Koiuta who will give local favorite Price Tag the most trouble. (Wait a While was to be scratched due to illness, trainer Todd Pletcher said.) Indeed, a repeat of her May 13 victory in the Victoria Mile, a race won last year by Dance in the Mood, could land Koiuta the $525,000 first prize.

MIAMI - The fastest horse in the East, the fastest horse in the West and the fastest horse in south Florida will all come together Saturday at Calder in the Grade 2, $500,000 Smile Sprint Handicap for the right to be called the fastest horse in the country at the mid-point of the 2007 campaign.

BOSSIER CITY, La. - Some habits can be tough to break, but following back-to-back Saturdays that resulted in four stakes wins in the region, trainer Pat Mouton would just as soon keep things as they are.

"It's a good habit to have," deadpanned Mouton after saddling Cort's P. B. and Leesa Lee in last Saturday night's Louisiana Legends Night at Evangeline Downs. Those successes came after winning with Cajun Conquest in the Seeking the Gold Stakes and Venomous in the Temperence Hill here at Louisiana Downs on June 23.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - You Will Love Me already has been a pleasant surprise this year. Now, after winning the seven-furlong Lady Angela on May 26 and doubling up in a six-furlong third-level allowance on June 8, You Will Love Me is scheduled to try turf for the first time in Sunday's 6 1/2-furlong Ontario Damsel.

You Will Love Me's recent successes came in Ontario-sired company, and the $150,000 Ontario Damsel, for Ontario-foaled 3-year-old fillies, looms a tougher assignment.

Two turf veterans ended long losing streaks Tuesday night at Mountaineer Race Track.

Water Gap ($12.60), a 7-year-old mare who had lost 18 straight grass races since her last victory in September 2004, won the Firecracker for fillies and mares while 7-year-old gelding Cherokee Prince ($16) snapped his five-race skid by holding off Load a Chronic by a head to defend his title in the Independence Day. Both stakes were contested at one mile on the turf and were worth $75,000.

MIAMI - For owner Harry Aleo and trainer Greg Gilchrist, Lost in the Fog was the type of horse who comes along once in a lifetime. Or so they thought.

But just two years after Lost in the Fog's Eclipse Award season and less than a year after the colt's untimely death from cancer, Aleo and Gilchrist find themselves atop the nation's sprint division again. This time, the horse is Smokey Stover, a 4-year-old son of Put It Back who goes for his fifth consecutive victory in Saturday's $500,000 Smile Sprint Handicap at Calder.