With an easy win over older horses last weekend at Santa Anita, the 3-year-old turf filly Wait a While has been ordained the best thing since sliced bread. But squirreled away at Hawthorne Race Course is another 3-year-old filly who is unbeaten on grass, Vacare, who will take her show on the road this weekend for a start in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on Oct. 14 at Keeneland.

Trainer Chris Block said Vacare would ship to Keeneland by van Saturday in order to breeze over the turf course there Monday and make final preparations for her race next Saturday.

There is an interesting dichotomy of contenders in Friday's Grade 3, $400,000 Indiana Breeders' Cup Oaks at Hoosier Park. One group of fillies have come to the fore over the past several months and hope to build on their new-found success. The other group, which includes some nationally recognizable names, are looking to rebound from sub-par efforts that have tarnished their reputations, if only temporarily.

High Cotton is the most accomplished of the three horses Todd Pletcher is considering running in the Pegasus.

Trainer Todd Pletcher holds a strong hand with three entrants in the Grade 3, $250,000 Pegasus Stakes for 3-year-olds Friday night at the Meadowlands Racetrack. Pletcher would not commit to running all three - High Cotton, Fairbanks, and Roman Dynasty - in the 1 1/8-mile race.

"I'm not sure exactly how many of them we're going to run," Pletcher said. "All three are doing really well. The only minus to this is running all three in the same race."

Amid all the changes at Keeneland - the reconfigured main track with a Polytrack surface and a new toteboard, to name two - there will be one constant there this fall. That would be the presence of 10-year-old Rochester, who is entered in Friday's Sycamore Breeders' Cup Stakes for the sixth year in a row.

A three-time winner of the race - in 2001, 2002, and 2005 - he figures to start at odds of around 8-1 when matched against 10 opponents in the Sycamore, a Grade 3, $150,000 turf race going 1 1/2 miles.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - European import Scarlett's Pride adds some intrigue to Friday's featured fourth race at Woodbine, an $80,000 optional claimer at six furlongs on the grass.

Scarlett's Pride, a 3-year-old by of 1996 Canadian International winner Singspiel, won her maiden second time out in June of 2005 in France. She subsequently finished fifth competing against males in the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin, but could manage only a seventh-place finish against her own sex in a Group 3 event in August of 2005.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - To say that just anyone could plug into the huge racing operation that Scott Blasi has overseen for the last three months would run the risk of underestimating the experience and work ethic that Blasi brings to the job.

GROVE CITY, Ohio - Beulah Park begins a shortened 48-day fall meeting Friday afternoon with the hope that racing's prospects in the state may take a turn for the better before the conclusion of the season Dec. 22.

ALBANY, Calif. - It was a fun weekend on the track for trainer Greg Gilchrist, owner Harry Aleo, and jockey Russell Baze, even though it started with a narrow nose defeat for Vicarino. By the time the weekend was over, Smokey Stover had pretty much punched his ticket to compete in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, and Quite a Rush gave the trio, well, quite a rush with her impressive maiden victory.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - It is cause for celebration in any other year, this reopening of Keeneland as the leaves begin to turn. But in the wake of a massive renovation that was undertaken and completed since racing was last held here in late April, the excitement surrounding the Friday opening of the fall meet at Keeneland is almost boundless.

PHOENIX - After a hugely successful 50th anniversary meeting last year, Turf Paradise opens its 51st season Friday with a nine-race card highlighted by the $24,000 Bienvenidos at a mile on the main track.