ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - It has happened again. Lewis Michael has turned in a top performance when it mattered least. Not that winning a high-end allowance race on Sunday at Arlington was meaningless, but the winner's share of a $37,500 purse pales in comparison to the money Lewis Michael could earn if he merits a career at stud. That's not so far-fetched, either, since Lewis Michael is in general from a good family, and in particular a full brother to champion filly Dreaming of Anna.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Komax, who has won his last five starts, will take on stakes winners Random Gold and Lineofbull in a competitive feature race Thursday night at Lone Star Park. A mix of established and promising horses are entered in the $35,000 optional claimer, which will be run at 6 1/2 furlongs. The feature will go as the eighth on a nine-race card.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Josie Carroll's barn seems to be chock full of precocious and productive 2-year-olds, and Alvena became the first stakes winner of the group here in last Sunday's Shady Well at Woodbine.

"We've definitely liked this filly from the start," said Carroll. "This race was certainly in our sights."

Alvena, bred at owner Jim and Alice Sapara's Winsong Farm in Kentucky, had finished second when beginning her career in a 4 1/2-furlong maiden special, and then graduated impressively at the same distance four weeks later.

Rags to Riches will not run Saturday in the $300,000 Coaching Club American Oaks after developing a fever, trainer Todd Pletcher said Monday.

The first filly to win the Belmont Stakes in 102 years, Rags to Riches showed symptoms on Sunday, forcing Pletcher to postpone a scheduled workout. Pletcher waited until Monday, hoping the temperature would return to normal. When it didn't, the Coaching Club American Oaks was ruled out.

Pletcher said Rags to Riches had a temperature of 101 on Sunday morning, and it remained in that range Monday.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Million Preview Day may merit more than mere moniker status this year.

Indeed, Arlington's three-weeks-out series of prep races for Arlington Million Day itself often does little more than showcase a series of lesser-lights lacking the class to compete in the three Grade 1s on Million Day (Aug. 11), but regardless of who turns up here next month, Saturday's three stakes appear to ably stand on their own.

Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn., will hold simultaneous turf and dirt races during its card on Sunday in which the order of finish, for parimutuel purses, will be determined by the combined results of the races.

Trainer Kelly Breen is using the $40,000 allowance feature Thursday at Monmouth Park as the prep to get Meadow Blue ready for a repeat bid in the Lincroft Handicap here on the Haskell Day undercard.

Meadow Blue ran the race of his life in last year's Lincroft for New Jersey-breds. The colt pulled away to a 7 1/2-length win, earning a career-best 100 Beyer Speed Figure.

Now 4, Meadow Blue has run twice here this year, finishing third in an open allowance in May followed by a rallying second in the Bernie Dowd Handicap against statebreds on June 17.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Sam-Son Farm, trainer Mark Frostad, and jockey Todd Kabel continued their domination of the Toronto Cup with Windward Islands here at Woodbine on Saturday.

Windward Islands, a Kentucky-bred who became a stakes winner in the 1 1/8-mile turf race for 3-year-olds, was the fifth straight Toronto Cup winner and seventh in the last eight years for Kabel.

Sam-Son and Frostad have won the last six Toronto Cups in which they fielded an entrant.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Northern California fairs move into uncharted territory Wednesday when the Sonoma portion of the combined Solano-Sonoma Wine Country race meeting shifts here from Vallejo. The Solano County Fair meeting in Vallejo ran for one week, and now the Sonoma County Fair meet in Santa Rosa will run for three weeks, including one week after the fair closes. It will be the first time a fair meet runs without an actual fair to accompany the racing.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Tiago, a sharp winner of the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park on Saturday, is more likely to make his next start outside of California against 3-year-olds than meet older horses for the first time in the $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 19, trainer John Shirreffs said Sunday.