CHICAGO - A curious racing fan looking back to, say, mid-May, would find in Daily Racing Form's Watchmaker Watch, a weekly listing of divisional leaders, 10 names in the older-male category. Ghostzapper is retired. Roses in May is retired. Rock Hard Ten hasn't raced in months. Southern Image - retired. Badge of Silver - hasn't raced in months. Funny Cide - done for the year. Second of June - on the shelf. Eddington - retired. And Pollard's Vision is retired.

If the Breeders' Cup Classic turns into a game of Last Horse Standing, we can always turn to Perfect Drift.

CHICAGO - When Fort Prado, Chicago's best middle-distance turf horse, went to Woodbine for the Aug. 27 Play the King Handicap, trainer Chris Block had no illusions. He believed that at seven furlongs, the Play the King would change the way Fort Prado, a natural eight- or 8 1/2-furlong horse, would race. Block predicted Fort Prado would fall farther behind the early leaders than usual and need to find some way through a bulky field. Block was dead right, and Fort Prado had no luck, trying to weave his way through traffic in the stretch after racing in 12th place on the Woodbine backstretch.

The land on which Kentucky Downs is situated is rich in American history, having been used for a brief period as a site for duels with pistols.

Horse trainer Dallas Stewart knows a little about history at Kentucky Downs, because it was on the same parcel of land, on Sept. 13, 1998, that Stewart sent out a colt named Kimberlite Pipe, ridden by Randy Romero, to win a six-furlong maiden race. Kimberlite Pipe went on to win the Louisiana Derby and more than $880,000 in purses.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Bill Mott finished second in eight stakes races at Saratoga, five of them by one half-length or less. Perhaps Thursday's Auntie Mame Stakes at Belmont signaled a change in fortune for Mott when Connie Belle remarkably won a photo by a nose over Silver Charades.

Mott won another stakes on Friday when Taittinger Rose took the $67,400 Sky Beauty.

Mott hopes the good karma continues on Saturday when he sends out My Lordship against 11 other fillies and mares in the Grade 3, $150,000 Noble Damsel Handicap at one mile over the Widener Turf.

It is not unusual to see a horse improve dramatically once it has been claimed by, or sent to, trainer Scott Lake, whose stable typically undergoes frequent turnover.

What is unusual is the lifetime form of Tacirring, who figures to be favored Saturday when facing seven other older horses in the $100,000 Kentucky Cup Turf Dash at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, Ky.

, now 6, began his racing career more than four years ago, and after 17 races, he had only one win. After 29 races, he had struggled to record four.

A wise man once said that a good horse can win "running up a tin roof or over broken glass," the point being that track conditions can be vastly overrated.

MIAMI - While division leader In Summation cools his heels awaiting next month's In Reality Stakes and an opportunity to sweep the open division of the Florida Stallion Stakes, a couple of his promising stablemates will attempt to pick up the slack in Saturday's $150,000 Foolish Pleasure Breeders' Cup Stakes at Calder.

The mile-and-70-yard Foolish Pleasure is one of four stakes race to be decided on Calder's 13-race Festival of the Sun preview card.

MIAMI - Mia's Reflection was 29-1 when she won her maiden in the Lindsay Frolic Stakes on Sept. 3. She will be a considerably shorter price when she returns Saturday at Calder to face nine other 2-year-old fillies in the $150,000 Brave Raj Breeders' Cup Stakes.

ELMONT, N.Y. - The Jockey Club Gold Cup is run in New York, but it will have a distinct Southern Californian flavor to it.

Lava Man, the Hollywood Gold Cup winner, became the latest West Coast-based horse to join the field for the $1 million Gold Cup, to be run next Saturday at Belmont Park. The Gold Cup is a stepping-stone to the $4 million Breeders' Cup Classic, which will be held at Belmont on Oct. 29.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - It's pretty nice to have a horse who can look at a $100,000 stakes as a prep for other races.

That's the case for Bonfante's trainer, Steve Specht, who sees Saturday's $100,000 California Turf Sprint Championship at Bay Meadows as a prep for the Cal Cup at Oak Tree.

The five-furlong turf race drew nine entrants, including the defending Cal Cup Sprint champion, Areyoutalkintome, who drew the rail for his turf debut.