Sam Houston Race Park in Houston closed out its 82-night Thoroughbred meet last Sunday with a small drop in average daily attendance and handle compared with the corresponding winter-spring meet in 2004-05.

Handle from all sources on the track's races averaged $1,737,522 a night, a decline of 1.8 percent from $1,769,035 in 2004-05.

Of that amount, an average of $1,630,461 a night was bet offtrack, a drop of 1.4 percent, and $107,061 ontrack, down 7.2 percent.

Sam Houston averaged 2,851 patrons a night, compared with 2,939 last meet, down nearly 3 percent.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Stablemates Gold Strike and Bosskiri will attract lots of the attention in Sunday's $125,000 Whimsical Stakes at Woodbine, but trainer Reade Baker said he might not run both of them in the six-furlong sprint for older females.

"I've entered them both, and it will depend on the track," Baker explained. "The plan could change, but the plan right now is to run Gold Strike if it's fast, and Bosskiri if it's not."

CALGARY, Alberta - Hot Talk, one of the quickest horses on the grounds, is the one to catch in Sunday's featured seventh race at Stampede Park.

Hot Talk was a vet scratch out of a four-furlong race on April 3 but has worked back twice since then for trainer Bob Kingston, indicating his readiness for a delayed seasonal debut.

Leading rider Quincy Welch has the mount for the first time on Hot Talk, who will meet just five rivals in this six-furlong allowance with a $40,000 claiming option.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Sacred Light, who finished fourth in the Santa Anita Derby last weekend, remains on course for the Kentucky Derby on May 6, if he can gain a berth into the field.

Owned by John and Jerry Amerman and trained by David Hofmans, Sacred Light was ranked 23rd in graded-stakes earnings among the Kentucky Derby hopefuls through Friday. With graded stakes run in Arkansas and Kentucky on Saturday for 3-year-olds, Hofmans fears that Sacred Light could slip further in the rankings.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - The return of the Grade 3 Bay Meadows Breeders' Cup Sprint highlights the $630,000 stakes schedule for the 28-day Bay Meadows spring meet that opens May 10.

The six-furlong race will be run June 10 with a $125,000 purse. It was not held last year when racing dates were shifted.

"We're glad to bring it back," racing secretary Tom Doutrich said. "Timing-wise it works well with the Southern California schedule."

The Sprint will be the lone graded stakes offered during the meet, which will include two $100,000 events.

If Lone Star Park were old enough to have a Hall of Fame, Steve Asmussen would be a charter member of it, so how better to kick off Lone Star's 2006 season than with an Asmussen horse in the winner's circle? That is exactly where Senor Amigo ended up after capturing the $50,000 Premiere Stakes, the traditional Lone Star opener, by four lengths.

A battle between the two richest New Mexico-breds of all time seems a fitting conclusion as Sunland Park concludes its 2005-06 meeting Sunday.

Rocky Gulch and Ciento will lock horns in an invitational handicap for New Mexico-breds at one mile. They didn't exactly scare off the opposition as eight others have entered the feature, which goes as the 12th race on a 13-race program.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Five days after Artie Schiller won the Breeders' Cup Mile at Belmont Park last fall, Miesque's Approval was risked in a $50,000 claiming race at Aqueduct. He finished sixth of 10, and there were no takers.

It would be hard to imagine that a little more than five months later, they would meet in the Grade 2, $250,000 at Keeneland. It would have seemed even more unlikely they would be virtually inseparable at the wire. And it would have been downright unfathomable back then that Miesque's Approval would win by a nose.

Swap Fliparoo was no match for Sensation in two meetings last year. But in Friday's $62,500 Road Princess Stakes at Aqueduct, Swap Fliparoo turned the tables on that rival by rallying for a one-length victory over Livermore Valley in the overnight stakes for 3-year-old fillies.

More than a dozen newly created or renamed races, plus the return of the track's premier stakes for sprinters, highlights a beefed-up and revamped stakes schedule for 2006 at the Charles Town Races and Slots.

In contrast to last year, when numerous stakes were canceled and 17 of the 30 added-money events that were run carried purses of less than $50,000, the list of 2006 stakes released by the track Friday contains 45 races, and all but six are worth at least $50,000. In 2005, the first stakes wasn't held until July 31. This season's stakes begin May 6.