FLORENCE, Ky. - By earning more than $1.8 million, Gander became one of the great New York-bred horses. Trainer John Terranova and his wife, Tonja, saw the gray gelding through his 60-race career, and it figured to be a while before their racing stable got a horse of similar caliber to replace Gander, who raced for the last time in July 2004.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Tony Dutrow does as good a job as any trainer when it comes to putting his horses in winnable spots. Having unsuccessfully chased Oprah Winney in two stakes tries this year with Smart and Fancy, Dutrow did not feel compelled to face her again in Saturday's Grade 2, $150,000 Distaff Breeders' Cup Handicap at Aqueduct.

Dutrow found Friday's $65,000 Break Through Stakes a better alternative for Smart and Fancy, and supplemented her to the race for a fee of $200. Smart and Fancy looms the horse to beat in the six-furlong overnight stakes.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Laura de Seroux, who trained 2002 Horse of the Year Azeri, has retired from training and turned her small stable over to her top assistant, Jeff Ford.

De Seroux, 55, said she has been considering retirement "for quite some time" and plans to work as a bloodstock agent with her husband, Emmanuel de Seroux. Prior to opening a stable in 1999, Laura de Seroux worked in bloodstock acquisition and management.

CALGARY, Alberta - The 2007 Alberta Thoroughbred season begins on Friday evening at Stampede Park with a program of nine half-mile races, which will be the standard distance for the opening two weekends at the 50-day meet.

The March 23 opener is the earliest in the track's history. Despite losing some training time because of inclement weather, trainers responded well to the opening card by entering 75 horses.

The meet highlight is the 77th running of the $125,000 Alberta Derby on June 16, the next-to-last day of the meet.

FLORENCE, Ky. - A handful of Florida shippers, led by the speedy Forefathers and the Todd Pletcher duo of Twilight Meteor and Bullara, will try to give favored Hard Spun a run for his money Saturday at Turfway Park in the $500,000 Lane's End Stakes.

Hard Spun, with Mario Pino to ride, drew post 10 in a full field of 12 3-year-olds for the Grade 2 Lane's End. The 5-2 choice on the track's morning line, Hard Spun will try to become the first favorite to win the race since Event of the Year in 1998.

By JOE DeVIVO

The impact of slots money is clearly evident in Philadelphia Park's 2007 stakes schedule.

Not only has the number of stakes the Bensalem, Pa., track will present this season nearly doubled from a year ago, from 20 to 35, but also the cumulative purses for added-money events rose 142 percent, from $1.77 million to $4.28 million.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Teuflesberg, who finished third in last Saturday's Grade 3, $300,000 Rebel here, shipped to Keeneland earlier this week but could return to Oaklawn for the Grade 2, $1 million Arkansas Derby here April 14.

The race is one of four options trainer Jamie Sanders is considering for Teuflesberg's next start. She said the others are the Gradeo1, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 7, the Grade 1, $750,000 Blue Grass at Keeneland on April 14, or the Grade 2, $325,000 Lexington, also at Keeneland, on April 21.

Fair Grounds, which shuts the door on a successful return to racing in New Orleans after Sunday's card, has five stakes races carded Saturday. But the effect of a multi-stakes day has gotten somewhat lost in a sea of purse money being thrown around in the final days of the meet.

ARCADIA, Calif. - King's Drama, who was pulled up and eased as the favorite March 10 in the Grade 2 Mervin Muniz at the Fair Grounds, is expected to race again. Trainer Bobby Frankel said tests came back clean and revealed no soft-tissue tears.

"I think he just stepped in a hole," Frankel said. "He probably strained a ligament."

Over the past two years, King's Drama has emerged as a consistent Grade 2-caliber long-distance turf runner. He won the Grade 1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga in 2005.

Larry Jones is relying on the instincts that have governed his 25 years of training racehorses. Although his latest stable star, Hard Spun, ran well enough last month in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park to earn a Beyer Speed Figure of 95, Jones still had an uneasy feeling about how the colt had trained over the Oaklawn track.

"I could just tell he was having to do too much and work too hard," said Jones, who normally gets aboard the colt for his morning gallops.