SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Six fillies and mares square off in the $40,000 Shakopee, one of two stakes on Canterbury Park's closing-day card on Monday.

A star is born? It's possible.

Royal Saint will get tested for class Monday at Louisiana Downs, when he makes his stakes debut in the $50,000 Prelude. The 1 1/16-mile race is the track's prep for its Grade 2, $750,000 Super Derby on Oct. 1.

Premier Dance, already a winner of the Middleground Stakes at Lone Star Park and most recently the Minstrel Stakes at Louisiana Downs, will attempt to make it three in a row in Monday night's Lafayette Stakes at Evangeline Downs.

He squares off against five rivals, including an entry, in the track's $100,000 traditional Labor Day feature for 2-year-olds going six furlongs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Churchill Downs Inc. officials announced Friday that the company will not conduct its 2005-06 race meeting at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but contingency plans are in the works for a possible abbreviated meet at Louisiana Downs.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Expectations were high when Grade 1-placed Three Valleys dropped into a second-condition allowance for his July 24 comeback at a mile on turf. Pounded to 3-5, he did not switch leads, was fully extended, and only inched clear in deep stretch.

The margin was three-quarters of a length. Many expected more.

DEL MAR, Calif. - A surface switch this summer may turn out to be the key to changing House of Fortune's luck.

A multiple stakes winner, House of Fortune is in the midst of a seven-race losing streak, dating back to the Grade 2 Hollywood Breeders' Cup Oaks on dirt at Hollywood Park in June 2004.

But on Sunday, House of Fortune, 4, will make her second start on turf in the $125,000 Solana Beach Handicap at Del Mar. The race comes six weeks after House of Fortune finished a close second in her grass debut.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Much to his distress, trainer Richard Mandella has become an expert on the 3-year-old multiple stakes winner Willow O Wisp.

The Mandella-trained Osidy was beaten two lengths by Willow O Wisp in the Grade 3 Cinema Breeders' Cup Handicap at Hollywood Park on June 26. In the Grade 2 La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar on Aug. 13, Mandella's El Roblar was third behind Willow O Wisp.

"I'm sick of him," Mandella said of Willow O Wisp. "I kept thinking he was not that good. He's pretty freaking good."

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Woodlander has improved greatly since switching from dirt to turf earlier this year, as evidenced by a victory in the Grade 3 Lexington at Belmont July 10. He will attempt to extend his win streak to four on Sunday at Saratoga in the Grade 3, $100,000 Saranac for 3-year-olds on the grass.

, sent out by trainer Tom Albertrani for owner Darley Stable, leads a field of 10 in the Saranac, race 10 on an 11-race card. The Saranac will be run at 1 3/16 miles.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Smuggler, winner of the Coaching Club Oaks and Mother Goose, will be out the rest of the year, trainer Shug McGaughey said Friday.

Smuggler, owned by the Phipps Stable, missed the Grade 1 Alabama here Aug. 20 because of a high temperature, and McGaughey said she still has a recurring fever. Smuggler was shipped from Saratoga to the Phipps farm in Kentucky on Thursday.

It's fairly common in harness racing for the racing secretary to assign the best horses to the far outside post positions in an attempt to create a more competitive race. That's not how it works in Thoroughbred racing, but it is how Lady Luck treated the two favorites on the track's morning line for Monday's $750,000 .

Sun King and Real Dandy drew the two outside stalls in Philadelphia Park's starting gate for the Grade 2 derby.