GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Trainer C.R. Trout said his goal for the strong closer Starry Pie is the new $1omillion Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Monmouth Park on Oct. 26. The first step toward that race will be taken later this month at Lone Star Park.

Trout said Starry Pie is scheduled to make her first start of the year in the $100,000 Valid Expectations, a six-furlong race for fillies and mares to be run on the Lone Star Million Day program, May 28. She has been working here in preparation for her first start since last fall.

MIAMI - Imawildandcrazyguy and Storm in May were good enough to compete in the Kentucky Derby, but they aren't the only 3-year-olds with national aspirations stabled at Calder this summer. Not after Hal's My Hope demolished a small but talented field by more than a dozen lengths last weekend in the Unbridled Stakes.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Thor's Echo, the champion sprinter of 2006 who raced in Dubai earlier this year, is expected to arrive at trainer Doug O'Neill's Hollywood Park stable Wednesday and will be campaigned in this country for the rest of the year.

O'Neill said he received word earlier this week that Thor's Echo was to arrive in this country over the weekend, would complete quarantine on the East Coast, and then would be sent to California.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – It’s a sign of how strong entries have been in the early stages of this Arlington Park meet that a second-level allowance race not only filled, it attracted enough entries to be split into two divisions.

Those two six-furlong races, the seventh and the ninth, wind up co-featured on a 10-race Sunday program here, and both look competitive.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Malcolm Pierce made no secret of the fact that Hide and Chic might not be on top of her game when she made her seasonal bow in the Grade 3 Whimsical here at Woodbine on April 15.

"I'd wanted to get a prep race into her," said Pierce, who had last raced Hide and Chic here Nov. 4. "But, it just didn't happen. We ran out of time."

AUBURN, Wash. - It was a typical midweek morning for Immigration, who will be heavily favored in a small field of 3-year-olds in Sunday's $45,000 Auburn Stakes at Emerald Downs.

Under regular rider Jennifer Whitaker, Immigration walked onto the track at about 10:30 on Wednesday and stood stock still in the quarter chute for perhaps 15 minutes.

"That's something Jen makes him do to settle him down before he trains," said trainer Howard Belvoir. "We don't want him too aggressive in the morning. He used to resist it, but now I think he enjoys the time to collect himself."

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Jockey Daniel Centeno will be taking the next step in an already remarkable year when he tries his luck at the Monmouth Park meeting that opens Saturday. Centeno won a record 124 races at the recently concluded Tampa Bay Downs meet despite missing several weeks to ride at Gulfstream Park.

"I was thinking before of going to a bigger track," Centeno said. "I was waiting for that call from a good agent or for someone to say, 'I want to bring that jockey here.' "

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Kip Deville, the winner of three consecutive graded stakes at a mile on turf in the last five months, worked six furlongs in 1:11.40 at Hollywood Park on Thursday.

The workout, the fastest of 22 at the distance, kept the 4-year-old on course for what could be his fourth consecutive stakes win - the Grade 1 Shoemaker Breeders' Cup Mile on turf at Hollywood Park on May 28.

Jockey Richard Migliore worked Kip Deville, who unexpectedly had a target during the workout in a horse that was working a few lengths in front of him.

Calisthenic and Earth Power, a pair of veteran geldings with 19 wins between them at Charles Town, head a field of eight short sprint specialists in the $50,000 Costy Caras Memorial Stakes.

The 8-year-old Calisthenic, 11 for 22 lifetime at Charles Town , is 4 for 7 at the Caras distance of 4 1/2 furlongs the past two seasons but is moving up in class after primarily facing optional claimers.

S W Aly'svalentine, a three-time stakes winner last season, will attempt to fire fresh off a long layoff in the $60,000 Pistol Packer Handicap, a six-furlong race for Pennsylvania-bred fillies and mares at Philadelphia Park.

Now 5, S W Aly'svalentine has been off since late December, but she was off for nearly seven months when she won the Missy Good at Penn National and the Ambassador of Luck at Philly Park in her first two starts of 2006.