OCEANPORT, N.J. - Trainer Vicki Oliver worries that the Grade 3, $200,000 Monmouth Breeders' Cup Oaks on Sunday comes a little too soon for Golden Locket.

The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies tops Monmouth's weekend stakes action.

Golden Locket was a game winner of Monmouth's Serena's Song Stakes on July 24. The filly has never been worse than second this year in six starts, and owns a pair of wins.

"I question coming back a little quicker than I'd like," Oliver said. "She breezed well. Hopefully, if it doesn't come up too tough, we'll run."

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Sweetgum and Charming Ruckus, both of whom are dropping in class, could prove the fillies to beat in an interesting pair of allowance races here Friday.

Sweetgum, a 4-year-old trained by Mike Keogh, will be looking to end a nine-race drought in the fifth race, a first-level allowance over 1 1/16 miles on the turf.

In her last start, over the same distance and course here July 23, Sweetgum was beaten just two lengths as the fourth-place finisher in a second-level allowance.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Manitoba Derby also-rans Goneoutandabout and Resurgent look to rebound in Friday's featured seventh race at Assiniboia Downs, a first-level allowance for 3-year-olds at six furlongs.

Claimed for $5,000 by trainer Raymond Liu on May 29, Goneoutandabout beat to $15,000 maiden claimers by 13 lengths in his next start. Goneoutandabout, a son of Lucky North, then finished second in an allowance race for 3-year-olds and third as the heavy favorite in a conditioned claiming race before a ninth-place finish in the Manitoba Derby.

ALTOONA, Iowa - Terry Thompson is headed back toward the top of the rider standings at Prairie Meadows after overcoming two career-threatening injuries in less than a year.

Thompson, who turned 34 Monday, won four straight Thoroughbred meeting titles here from 2000-03. Last June, he was in the midst of a battle for his fifth straight crown and had just captured his first Grade 1 stakes, aboard Island Sand in the Acorn, when a horrific spill sent him to the sidelines.

The fillies Lindas Dasher and Dasha Freda, each yet to gain a Grade 1 win, lead the trials to the Grade 1, 400-yard Golden State Derby at Los Alamitos on Saturday night.

The 10 fastest qualifiers are eligible for the finals on Aug. 27.

Lindas Dasher, an earner of $205,785, has Grade 1 seconds in the Governor's Cup Futurity, PCQHRA Breeders Futurity, and Governor's Cup Derby, her most recent start on July 30. In that derby she went off at 5-2 odds and finished three-quarters of a length behind the sharp Apollitical Time.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - In May of 2001, at the Ramsey Farm in central Kentucky, an enormous 155-pound foal was extracted via cesarean section from a mare named Kitten's First. The typical Thoroughbred foal weighs in somewhere around 120. But every season, Kitten's First produced the biggest foals at Ramsey Farm. They caused delivery problems, and it was deemed prudent to have planned C-sections, a rarity in the horse world.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Of 162 foreign horses that have through the years traveled to Arlington Park for the three turf stakes that make up Saturday's International Festival of Racing, 10 have left winners. Foreigners have won six of 22 Arlington Millions, three of 15 Beverly D.'s, and one Secretariat, though that race had no European invasion until fairly late in its history.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - The name General Jumbo was bandied about in the last week as a possible starter in the Secretariat Stakes, though Niall O'Callaghan, the horse's trainer, suggested General Jumbo would have been given serious consideration only if the Secretariat had started to fray. Instead, O'Callaghan has picked out a plum spot for General Jumbo: a 3-year-old entry-level allowance race with a $50,000 claiming option that serves as the Thursday feature at Arlington.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Smuggler, the leading 3-year-old filly on the East Coast, will be forced to miss the Grade 1 Alabama on Aug. 20 after developing a temperature, trainer Shug McGaughey said Tuesday.

Coming off wins in the Mother Goose and Coaching Club American Oaks, Smuggler would have been favored for the $750,000 Alabama - the third leg of New York's triple crown for 3-year-old fillies - run at 1 1/4 miles.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The enigmatic Cloakof Vagueness was a perfect lady Tuesday morning after working a half-mile in preparation for Thursday's eighth race at Saratoga, the second division of the De La Rose Stakes for older fillies and mares. Her trainer, Phil Hauswald, said he is hoping that deportment continues right through the race, which would give Cloakof Vagueness her best chance at scoring her first stakes victory.