SASKATOON, Saskatchewan - The 30-day live season at Marquis Downs begins Friday with racing scheduled every Friday and Saturday evening until Sept. 8, with the exception of Aug. 10-11. Post time is 7 p.m. Central Standard.

Excessively Sweet headlines the meet's first race, an allowance for fillies and mares at a half-mile. Changes have been made to the stakes schedule which will give Saskatchewan-bred runners, such as Excessively Sweet, a chance to increase their bankrolls on Heritage weekend, Aug. 17-18.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Calvin Borel, a Louisiana native who won the Kentucky Derby aboard Street Sense, will be riding at Lone Star Park for the first time in three years Monday. He will pilot Jonesboro in the Grade 3, $400,000 Lone Star Park Handicap.

Borel last rode at Lone Star in 2004. Jonesboro is one of several mounts he will have on the Lone Star Million Day card, a program that includes six stakes races worth a cumulative $1 million. Borel also has calls to ride Rich Fantasy in the Grade 3, $200,000 Ouija Board Distaff, and Kat Nan Do in the $100,000 Valid Expectations.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Nick Zito has won the Kentucky Derby twice, a Preakness, a Belmont Stakes, and a Travers. And while Strike the Gold, Go for Gin, Louis Quatorze, and Birdstone helped Zito get to the Hall of Fame, Zito's favorite horse is one whose biggest accomplishment is winning the Pennsylvania Derby.

Jeff Radosevich won his ninth meet training title and sixth in a row with 18 winners during the Summit Meet. Radosevich finished ninth nationally in 2006 with 180 winners.

"I don't think about titles too much," he said. "I just go on to the next one."

Winning titles here just became a little more difficult, as Gerald Bennett, one of the Midwest's winningest trainers, has shipped in 25 horses after having a very successful meet at Tampa Bay Downs where he finished third in the standings with 31 winners. Bennett also has a division of horses at Great Lakes Downs.

Another Audible continued her dominance last Saturday with an 8 1/2-length win over males in the $15,000 Speed Stakes.

The 4-year-old daughter of Menifee has been all but unstoppable since making her career debut at Fonner Park on Feb. 9. She won that half-mile test by 12 lengths in a time of 44.80 seconds, in the shadow of the track record of 44 seconds set by Leaping Plum. She tasted defeat in her next start against allowance company, losing by six lengths to Salty Attraction, who would become a stakes winner in the following weeks.

Louisiana had Hallowed Dreams, and now New Mexico has Peppers Pride. She improved her career record to 10 for 10 last month, when she won the $80,000 New Mexico Distaff Handicap at SunRay Park in Farmington.

Hallowed Dreams won the first 16 races of her career to tie the modern mark for consecutive wins set by Citation, Mister Frisky, and Cigar. Most of those wins came in her homestate of Louisiana.

AUBURN, Wash. - Rider Gallyn Mitchell, who scored his 50th Emerald Downs stakes victory when he booted Dinner at Arlene's to an authoritative sloppy-track win at 21-1 in Sunday's Hastings Park Handicap, described his mount's obvious affinity for wet surfaces in one way.

"This kind of track moves her up 10 lengths," he said.

Doris Harwood, who trains Dinner at Arlene's for Jerre Paxton's Northwest Farms, disagreed with her rider's choice of words, if not with his point.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Arravale, Canada's reigning Horse of the Year and champion turf female, has hit a bump on the road en route to her first start of the season.

"We had a little bit of a setback," said Mac Benson, who trains Arravale for Bob Costigan here at Woodbine. "She popped a splint."

Arravale, a Kentucky-bred, had been slated to make her first start of 2007 here June 2 in the Grade 2, $300,000 Nassau, a 1o1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares.

Meadow Vespers spoiled the 2007 debut of the reigning Michigan horse of the year, Weatherstorm, when he rallied to beat Dorthys Champ by a neck in an optional claiming race Tuesday evening at Great Lakes Downs. Weatherstorm, who raced in stalking position early, pounced but then hung in the final yards and was three lengths back in third. Rockem Sockem, a past horse of the year and stablemate of Weatherstorm, finished fifth.

When a horse wins in his first attempt back from a layoff of more than three years, it would be considered a surprise under normal circumstances. That was not the case for Arran Pilot, who led gate-to-wire last Friday in a nonwinners-of-two claimer and paid $4.60 as the favorite.