INGLEWOOD, Calif. - With a prep race behind her and a return to the main track, is ideally placed to win the second stakes of her career in Sunday's $95,000 Cat's Cradle Handicap at Hollywood Park.

That is the opinion of trainer Bob Baffert, who was very confident when entries were drawn Friday.

"She's sitting on a big one," Baffert said.

The 120-pound starting highweight, Western Hemisphere is the likely favorite in the Cat's Cradle, run over 7 1/2 furlongs on dirt for California-bred fillies and mares.

PORTLAND, Ore. - A pair of open stakes for 2-year-olds will be contested at Portland Meadows on Sunday, and that usually means the Oregon-breds who enter have to take a back seat.

Not this time, however, as statebred Cascades Express figures as a strong favorite in the Lassie Stakes for fillies and Tom Two should be a slight choice over fellow Oregon-bred Cascadians Cuttie in the Columbia River Stakes for colts and geldings. Both of the $10,000 events will be contested at six furlongs.

Jockey Lonnie Meche has been suspended at least six months by the Sam Houston Race Park stewards after testing positive for amphetamines. Before he can be reinstated, he must pass an evaluation by the Texas Racing Commission's medical review officer. The violation is the second in Texas for Meche.

He tested positive for amphetamines, which can increase energy and dull appetite, in April at Lone Star Park and was suspended 45 days. As part of Meche's compliance with that penalty, he was subject to random drug testing. Meche was tested at Sam Houston on Nov. 5.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Wild Fit, the runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Belmont Park on Oct. 29, has joined trainer Patrick Biancone's stable at Santa Anita but will not start in the Hollywood Starlet Stakes on Dec. 18, Biancone said.

Widely considered one of the top 2-year-old fillies in training, Wild Fit will be pointed for the $300,000 Santa Anita Oaks on March 12, Biancone said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Dale Romans said he believes that in order "to be a major player on the national scene" a trainer needs to maintain a year-round presence in New York. So, for the first time, Romans will keep horses in New York for Aqueduct's inner-track meet.

Turfway Park made a quick break from the gate when it started its Holiday meet Sunday, and track president Bob Elliston said the new Polytrack surface is the underlying reason.

STICKNEY, Ill. - At 6:56 a.m. on Friday morning at O'Hare airport, the temperature was 14 degrees, the wind was out of the west at a brisk 12 miles per hour - with an emphasis on brisk. Twenty-four miles away, at Hawthorne Race Course, people were not just outside in the cold, they were outside riding horses around in the cold.

Nobody notices winter racing at a northern venue more than exercise riders. Their job does not change just because flesh is getting stuck to metal, and the infield lagoon is begging for a backstretch ice hockey league.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Danny Vella already has won a pair of 2-year-old filly stakes at Woodbine this year with Knights Templar.

Sunday, Vella will be looking to take home the division's final jewel of the meeting with Like a Gem, who will face five other Ontario-foaled fillies in the $162,050 Ontario Lassie Stakes.

Like a Gem, who races for Garland Williamson's Hillsbrook Farm, won her maiden over five furlongs at first asking and then finished fifth before being disqualified and placed seventh in the seven-furlong Glorious Song.

ALBANY, Calif. - Thursday's heavy rain has left the status of the turf course questionable for Sunday's feature at Golden Gate Fields, a 1 1/16-mile optional $80,000 claimer.

The race is carded for the turf with six entrants. A seventh runner, Traffic Update, was listed only for the main track.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Round two of what figures to be a prolonged rivalry between Tom Two and Cascadians Cuttie will take place in Sunday's $10,000 Columbia River Stakes at six furlongs, and both juveniles will have their partisans.

Tom Two won the initial match-up in the Bill Wineberg Stakes on Nov. 19, when he led throughout six furlongs in 1:13 to prevail over Cascadians Cuttie by two lengths. Cascadians Cutttie might have had more than two lengths of trouble in the Bill Wineberg, however, as rider Debbie Hoonan was forced to check repeatedly on the backstretch.