ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Saturday's $125,000 Ontario Fashion Stakes at Woodbine is a pivotal race for the Hide and Chic. Run at six furlongs, it will be her third start in Canada in 2006, giving her the minimum number of starts required to be eligible for a Sovereign Award this year.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Here is an indication of the strength of the field for Sunday's Grade 3, $100,000 Bay Meadows Derby: Corey Nakatani and Patrick Valenzuela will fly here from Saturday's Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs to ride in the 1 1/8-mile turf race instead of returning directly to Southern California.

Valenzuela will ride the Bobby Frankel-trained German import Proudinsky. Nakatani will be aboard the Neil Drysdale-trained Illuminise, an Irish-bred filly meeting colts after scoring her first U.S. stakes win in the Harold C. Ramser in her last start.

Julie B and Malibu Sue, both winners on the West Virginia Breeders Classics program three weeks ago, face off in the $50,000 Sylvia Bishop Memorial Stakes for 3-year-old West Virginia-bred fillies at Charles Town.

Trained by George Yetsook, Julie B has been the fastest filly at Charles Town, where she is 6 for 7. Her last two Beyers of 82 and 77, for victories in the $315,000 Cavada and its prep stakes a month earlier, tower over the competition.

High-percentage trainers Scott Lake and Ben Feliciano Jr. will each send out two strong contenders in the $100,000 Dave's Friend at 5 1/2 furlongs, one of three stakes on Saturday's 10-race card at Laurel Park.

In addition to the Dave's Friend, which goes as race 8, there are a pair of $75,000, 1 1/8-mile turf stakes for Maryland-breds - the All Brandy for fillies and mares and the Find Handicap. First post time has been moved up to 11:15 a.m. Eastern.

Bill Mott will be at Churchill Downs on Saturday attempting to orchestrate two upsets in the Breeders' Cup World Championships. George Steinbrenner will be in Tampa, Fla., trying to scheme a way to make his New York Yankees better.

Briefly, both men's attention will be focused at Aqueduct, where Grade 1 winners Splendid Blended, trained by Mott, and Sweet Symphony, owned by Steinbrenner and trained by Mott, will be running in separate graded events.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - There are bonds of friendship that often exist between trainers and owners of racehorses. Sometimes those bonds run deep, such as with two-time Kentucky Derby-winning owner Bob Lewis and trainers D. Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert. When Lewis died earlier year, Baffert described him as a father figure.

Trainer Wayne Catalano and owner Frank Calabrese - the connections of Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies contender Dreaming of Anna and Sprint longshot Lewis Michael - do not share such closeness. Their association is one focused on winning races, not sharing laughs.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Saturday's feature race at Hastings, an allowance race for 3-year-old fillies who haven't won a stakes in 2006, was written with a horse like Miss Me Not in mind. A stakes winner as a 2-year-old, Miss Me Not is as honest as they come but hasn't been up to beating the top females at Hastings this year. The 1 1/16-mile feature drew 10 horses and will go as the seventh race.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Magna Graduate won one of the races that preceded the Breeders' Cup last year at Belmont Park. Saturday at Churchill Downs, Magna Graduate will try to do the same when he makes his return from a seven-month layoff in the $200,000 Ack Ack Handicap, the second race on the card.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Horseplayers analyzing Saturday's Very Subtle Stakes on the Breeders' Cup undercard at Churchill Downs might feel as if they have seen the race before.

Five of the 14 entrants in the six-furlong, $200,000 race were also entered in Thursday's one-mile Chilukki Stakes at Churchill Downs. With both races being run around one turn for fillies and mares, the connections of these five - Indian Flare, Joint Effort, Prospective Saint, Trippi Street, and Humorous Gal - entered both spots and weighed their options.

The four-month vacation that FDD Dynasty had during the summer and fall makes him a rested horse for Saturday's $1,223,800 Golden State Million Futurity for Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos.

With his win in the Ed Burke Million Futurity in July, FDD Dynasty remains eligible for a $1 million bonus if he wins the Golden State Million and the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity in December.