SAN MATEO, Calif. - Two years ago, it would have taken much more money than it will take on Friday to purchase Swingn' Notes.

The 5-year-old mare makes her return to the turf in Friday's Bay Meadows feature, a $62,500 optional claimer for fillies and mares at one mile. Swingn' Notes, Slews in Demand, and Thrill After Dark are entered for a claiming tag in the field of nine.

Swingn' Notes, who graduated on the turf as a 2-year-old, will make her first start on that surface since a dull try in the Palo Alto here two years ago.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - What a difference five days makes. When the Grade 3, $100,000 Nashua Stakes was originally drawn for last Sunday, it contained six

2-year-old colts eligible for first-level allowance conditions.

The Nashua, along with its filly counterpart, the Tempted, was postponed because of dangerously high winds. The revised version of the Nashua expanded to a field of eight and got tougher with the additions of out-of-town invaders, Adore the Gold and Xchanger, both stakes winners.

Wave Carver will be favored on Friday to do something that his champion brother Ocean Runaway couldn't do last year - win the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Super Derby.

A year ago, 1-5 favorite Ocean Runaway finished second to Apollitical Time in the Los Alamitos Super Derby. The earner of $1.6 million, Ocean Runaway then set a Los Alamitos 400-yard track record in the Z. Wayne Griffin Directors' Stakes and won the Grade 1 Champion of Champions to secure the champion 3-year-old colt title.

There will be some star power in the house Friday night at Delta Downs. Grade 1 winner Meadow Breeze is set to make an appearance in the $100,000 My Trusty Cat, and the undefeated Tortuga Straits will vie for favoritism with Go Poppa Fooze in the $150,000 Jean Lafitte.

The races are two of four stakes on the program, which is called Jackpot Preview Night. The Jean Lafitte and My Trusty Cat, each for 2-year-olds, are expected to produce starters for Delta's richest races, the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Jackpot and the $300,000 Delta Princess. Both races will be run Dec. 1.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Butch Lehr has been watching The Weather Channel very closely and likes what he is seeing. Lehr, the longtime track superintendent at Churchill Downs, said he believes the dirt and turf courses will both be in ideal shape Saturday for the 23rd Breeders' Cup World Championships.

"After today it looks like the rain is out of here," Lehr said early Wednesday as a steady rain began showing signs of easing. "We're getting down to the nitty gritty, and it looks like we're going to be in excellent shape."

The picture remains pretty clear in the mind's eye, Intercontinental out in front and running along at a snail's pace in last year's Filly and Mare Turf, the realization slowly developing that, no, they're not going to catch her, not even the great Ouija Board.

It's a picture that surely has played in the mind of Craig Dollase, the trainer of Dancing Edie, who will try - like Intercontinental did - to steal the Filly and Mare Turf on the lead.

Prop Me Up, third in the Grade 3 Matchmaker at Monmouth Park earlier this season, holds a distinct class advantage over her rivals in the $65,000 Navajo Princess Stakes at the Meadowlands.

A mile and 70-yard turf stakes, the Navajo Princess drew 14 fillies and mares, including two entered for the main track only, but a maximum of nine will be permitted to start if the race remains on grass.

A half-length separated Eagle Speed, Fancy Dan, and Dahlgren Hall when they finished one-two-three in the Vincent Moscarelli on West Virginia Breeders Classic Night three weeks ago. The trio figures to dominate the two divisions of the Tri-State Futurity for 2-year-olds foaled in Maryland, Virginia, or West Virginia on Friday night at Charles Town.

Each division of the seven-furlong Futurity is worth $25,000. The stakes was split because 16 horses were entered and the maximum field size at Charles Town is 10.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Mike Harrington has trained his stable at Hollywood Park for the last two months, but even he was uncertain how his horses would react to racing on the track's new synthetic surface this week.

Harrington had entrants on Wednesday and Thursday and is expected to be quite active this weekend. Friday, he has six entrants on the eight-race card.

"By Sunday night, I'll either be laughing or crying," he said at his barn Wednesday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The European influence on turf races at Churchill Downs won't wait until Saturday's Breeders' Cup events. The River City Handicap, a 1 1/8-mile grass race on Friday at Churchill, has a strong European flavor, with five of the nine horses entered either European shippers or one-time European racers.