DEL MAR, Calif. - In the stable area parking lot at Del Mar racetrack, Kevin Gregory is conducting a science project. He has got individual piles of sand, rubber, and two types of fibers. Every other day, a big tanker truck filled with liquid wax pulls up. On those days, from morning until night, Gregory repeatedly mixes all the ingredients in an oversized green cylinder and produces a finished product that Del Mar racetrack is hoping will help quiet years-long concern regarding the safety of its main track.

NEW ORLEANS - It was a dank, misty afternoon at Fair Grounds and the light was already failing as the mud-spattered horses and jockeys returned following Thursday's seventh race, but 16-year-old apprentice jockey Joe Talamo III was beaming like a sunny day in June. Talamo had just ridden his third winner of the day, and his mount, Flambeau Man, was now undefeated in four starts at the meet. It was the kind of scene that has become commonplace this season, as Talamo turns the race for leading rider into his own special coming-out party.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Like most five-furlong turf sprints, Sunday's $46,000 allowance headliner figures to feature a fast and potentially contentious pace. If so, it should enhance the chances of likely favorite Two Names, who turns back in distance off a route.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Racing will resume at Portland Meadows on Sunday after an entire week was lost to severe winter weather, and the feature will have a familiar look.

Director of racing Jerry Kohls has re-carded an invitational handicap for older runners that was scheduled to be run last Sunday at six furlongs. Kohls shortened the race to five furlongs, as few horses have been able to train over the last week, but he has lured four of the five original entrants, plus newcomer Crimson Design.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The first race Sunday at Oaklawn Park offers a first look at some of the 3-year-old fillies capable of advancing to the track's top race for the division, the Grade 2, $250,000 Fantasy Stakes on April 6.

Chief among the entrants in the seven-horse optional claimer are High Heels and Grace Happens, who both exit Grade 2 races and are making their first start since November. Also in the 1 1/16-mile race is the stakes-placed New Edition.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Cornelio Velasquez may not get as much publicity or as many headlines as colleagues such as John Velazquez or Edgar Prado. But Velasquez, 38, has certainly been no stranger to success over the past several years while seemingly primed for his best season yet in 2007.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The good 3-year-old filly Down, a troubled third in the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet in just her second career start, is out of the Santa Anita Oaks and Kentucky Oaks.

Trainer Bobby Frankel said Down was scheduled for minor surgery Friday to remove a flake from an ankle. He expects her to resume training by the end of March.

"She'll be out six weeks, and back running by the middle of May," Frankel said.

Julien Leparoux has become quite the frequent flier, having made maybe a dozen trips out of the Cincinnati-northern Kentucky International Airport to and from California in recent months. But when he leaves Cincinnati on Sunday morning for Los Angeles, it will be one of the most special trips of his young life.

ALBANY, Calif. - Recent maiden winner William T will have to answer a new question in Sunday's Golden Gate Fields feature, a 1o1/16-mile allowance race.

With trainer Dennis Patterson unable to find a suitable turf race for William T, he will make his first start on dirt.

"We'd definitely prefer turf," Patterson said. "But at this point, I don't know how long the wait would be, possibly until Bay Meadows starts [Feb. 14], and I'm not sure how quick they'll start grass racing."

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Mike Hushion says he isn't much on statistics, but he does appreciate the fact that he's closing in on his 1,000th career victory as a trainer.

"Absolutely," said Hushion, who had 996 career wins through Friday. "I don't know if people today would understand this, but for years if you won 100 races you were leading trainer in New York. Now you get these guys who on Feb. 3 have won their 100th race."