Any time there's a stakes race at Charles Town this season, it's safe to assume trainer Scott Lake has at least one contender.

Of the 10 horses Lake has started in added-money events in 2006 at Charles Town, he has collected 7 wins, 2 seconds, 1 third, and $268,775.

Lake figures to add to those impressive statistics when he sends out strong threats in both of the $50,000 stakes on Friday night's card.

Sinister G is the 123-pound highweight and likely favorite among seven older males in the HBPA Governor's Cup Handicap at 1 1/8 miles.

Friday's $40,000 Harvest Festival Futurity will bring a rising star to the Big Fresno Fair.

The six-furlong stakes race for 2-year-olds drew six entrants, headed by Vicarino, an impressive debut winner at Santa Rosa, who lost by a nose to Pacific Heat in a very fast allowance race at Golden Gate Fields two weeks ago.

Hall of Fame jockey Russell Baze, counting down to the day he surpasses Laffit Pincay Jr. on the all-time win list, accompanies Vicarino, who will be making his stakes debut.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The 12-horse lineup for the $200,000 Perryville Stakes starts with one major contender and ends with another. Remarkably, most of the other horses who will start outside of Likely and inside of High Finance also qualify as viable contenders, making Friday's eighth running of the Perryville the deepest in its brief history.

ELMONT, N.Y. - A pair of optional claiming races for New York-breds highlight Thursday's card at Belmont Park, and a forecast that calls for rain could play a role in the make-up of the fields.

Race 6, a $30,000 optional claimer with second-level allowance conditions, drew a field of 10, and the main speed, Raceland, is on the outside. Raceland is trained by Rick Violette Jr., who is in the midst of a banner fall meet with 9 wins from his first 23 starters.

"I need to keep it up, that's the tough part," said Violette.

Carolina Sky, who dominated the female turf division this meet at Louisiana Downs, could soon see graded stakes action in Kentucky. A winner of her last five starts, she rose from first-level allowance winner to two-time stakes winner in four starts at the meet, with her latest score coming in the $100,000 River Cities Breeders' Cup here Sept. 30.

"So far, she's stepped up every trip," said Morris Nicks, who trains Carolina Sky for David Hutcherson and Dan and Tim Bockmon.

CHICAGO - Trainer Christine Janks has nothing going on Thursday at Hawthorne, but she won the stakes-class allowance feature here Monday and will have plenty of action away from Chicago this weekend.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - High Finance drew the outside post as the probable favorite for the Friday feature at Keeneland, the $200,000 Perryville Stakes, for which entries were drawn Tuesday.

Owned by West Point Stable and trained by Rick Violette, High Finance earned a 108 Beyer Speed Figure in winning a second-level allowance on the Aug. 26 Travers undercard at Saratoga.

"We're thrilled with how he ran on Travers Day," said Jeff Lifson, director of Midwest operations for West Point. "Off that big effort, we've got some pretty high ambitions for him."

ARCADIA, Calif. - Two stakes-winning Brazilian-bred fillies - Nakaba and Naughty Rafaela - will play a pivotal role in Thursday's fourth race at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting.

Nakaba and Naughty Rafaela are making their first starts in the United States in a $47,000 allowance race at 1 1/8 miles on turf on Thursday.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Jockey Corey Nakatani had his best Breeders' Cup Day when he rode two winners in 1996 at Woodbine - Jewel Princess in the Distaff and Lit de Justice in the Sprint.

A decade later, that personal record may be about to fall.

MIAMI - Straight Faced will break from post 1 when he attempts to become the eighth horse in Florida Stallion Stakes history to sweep all three divisions of the series in Saturday's $400,000 In Reality Stakes.