BOSSIER CITY, La. - The Beter Man Can and Destiny Calls are the class of Saturday's $100,000 Ladies, but both will be racing a bit beyond their optimum distance in the 1 1/16-mile race.

The Ladies, restricted to fillies and mares bred in Louisiana, is one of 10 stakes on the $1 million Louisiana Champions Day program at the Fair Grounds meet at Louisiana Downs.

biggest career win came at one mile in the $100,000 Tiffany Lass at Fair Grounds in January. She won by a neck, and in her most recent start was a 7 1/4-length winner of a seven-furlong allowance on Nov. 17.

OLDSMAR Fla. - Forest Danz, winner of 2 of 3 lifetime starts, will meet the undefeated Liquoreux when a full field of 14 2-year-olds runs Saturday in the $60,000 Inaugural Stakes as Tampa Bay Downs launches its 80th season of racing.

Aurelio Toribio Jr., who will ride here instead of Calder this season, will handle Forest Danz for trainer Manny Estevez. Forest Danz, a Forestry colt, will carry 122 pounds under the allowance conditions of the race.

The Inaugural is the first of 26 stakes, worth $2.3 million, that Tampa Bay will offer this season.

MIAMI - Trainer Linda Rice expected Yankee Master to be a good turf horse after watching the 2-year-old colt work this summer over the grass course at Saratoga's Oklahoma training track. And up to this point, her expectations have been met.

Yankee Master scored easy victories in each of his first two starts, both on the grass, and will be heavily favored to continue winning when he faces 11 other juveniles in Saturday's $100,000 Kris S. Stakes at Calder. The 1 1/16-mile turf race shares top billing with its filly counterpart, the $100,000 Cherokee Frolic.

CHICAGO - The horse who probably would win the Pat Whitworth Illinois Debutante is nowhere near Hawthorne Race Course. Original Spin, the Illinois-bred 2-year-old filly who finished third in the Breeders' Cup Distaff, is taking a break in Aiken, S.C., until sometime next year. Original Spin has locked up an Illinois championship in her division, but somebody else is going to take away the winner's share of a $100,000 purse Saturday.

In an age when racetracks are in dire need of horses to fill their programs, a stakes race is more apt to be canceled than divided. The most recent year in which Turfway Park had such a surplus of horses that a stakes was run in two divisions was 1995, when both the Turfway Prevue and Likely Exchange were divided.

A decade later, a thing of the past is a thing of today. The My Charmer Stakes, scheduled for Saturday at Turfway in Florence, Ky., drew 27 fillies and mares, leading racing secretary Rick Leigh to card the race in two divisions.

It hasn't mattered to Strategically whether the race is on turf or dirt - he has been firing on all cylinders, and his strong current form carries him into the $40,000 Black Mountain Handicap at Turf Paradise as the highweight and likely favorite. A field of six will go in the 1 1/16-mile feature on the main track.

It hasn't taken long for Steve Asmussen, Sunland Park's defending champion trainer, to make his presence felt here again. He already has one stakes win at the meet, and he looks for another one Saturday when he sends out Primal Storm as the horse to beat in the $50,000 Sunland Park Fall Derby. The 6 1/2-furlong race for 3-year-olds has attracted a field of five.

The rivalry between the Quarter Horses Catchmeinyourdreams and Whosleavingwho stretches back to May 2003 and covers 11 races.

Catchmeinyourdreams has finished ahead of Whosleavingwho eight times, but it is Whosleavingwho who has accomplished more.

The 2002 co-World Champion Quarter Horse, Whosleavingwho, 7, has earned more than $1.3 million in 44 starts. Catchmeinyourdreams, 6, twice named champion aged gelding, has won $939,542 from 42 starts.

Lexi Star, narrowly beaten by Sticky in each of her last two starts, will take another crack at her nemesis in Saturday's $75,000 Geisha Handicap at Laurel Park.

A 1 1/8-mile race restricted to Maryland-bred fillies and mares, the Geisha drew a field of 11, including a three-horse entry from trainer Dickie Small.

Both Lexi Star and Sticky will be facing older horses after a pair of close battles against 3-year-old fillies the past two times out.

Aqueduct canceled its live racing program for Friday as weather forecasts called for a four-to-six-inch snowstorm in the Metropolitan area. The track will also be closed for simulcasting.

New York Racing Association officials made the decision Thursday afternoon, taking in consideration that the storm was predicted for times when horses would be shipping in from other jurisdictions as well from Belmont Park. Another consideration was the preservation of the inner dirt track for future use.