COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - Granite City, Ill., is exactly as unglamorous as it sounds. A workaday St. Louis suburb of some 30,000 residents, its most recognizable landmark is a large steel mill whose visible gaseous flames resemble super-sized Bunsen burners in the night sky.

When young Jeff Cooper and John Kabbendjian went looking for respite from their gritty hometown, they most often ended up at Fairmount Park. Shabby by the standards of most horseplayers, the track seemed downright regal to Cooper and Kabbendjian, whose love for the sport would only flourish.

The years 2003 and 2004 were banner ones for the Ohio-bred filly Oh So Easy, who racked up seven stakes wins, going short and long, on turf as well as dirt.

But the tide may be turning for Oh So Easy, who last month ran well below her best for the second time in her last three attempts in a statebred stakes. Rival horsemen, perhaps detecting vulnerability in the Ohio champion mare, needed no arm-twisting to fill the entry box for Saturday's $40,000 Ms. Southern Ohio Stakes at River Downs, which Oh So Easy will try to win for the second straight year.

The Niner Account will return to the surface and site of his biggest career win when he moves back to the turf at Remington Park for the $40,000 Brother Brown.

The Niner Account won this five-furlong turf sprint last meet, and comes into this year's race in top form. In his last start, July 16, he won a six-furlong allowance at Lone Star Park in 1:08.64.

The Niner Account held off multiple stakes winner Joe Six Pack on the wire, and earned a Beyer Figure of 105. The race was The Niner Account's first start in blinkers.

Premium Saltine looms a short-priced favorite when he faces six rivals in the $50,000 Prairie Meadows Sprint.

Premium Saltine looks to give owner Maggi Moss her second stakes win in a week with a horse she claimed for $40,000. Last Saturday, the Moss-owned Silver Axe won the $75,000 Prairie Meadows Handicap.

Moss claimed Premium Saltine for $40,000 last October at Lone Star Park. He has since won 3 of 6 starts and earned more than $95,000, including a three-quarter length victory in the $51,000 Prairie Meadows Express here on May 7.

A handful of the region's recent turf stakes winners will converge on Retama Park for the $50,000 Margarita Breeders' Cup.

Paz Ciudadana and Pad the Wallet will meet for the first time after winning stakes at Louisiana Downs, while High Pioneer comes into the 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares off an overnight stakes win at Lone Star Park.

S C King and Chasin the Wind should vie for favoritism, and the role of pacesetter, when they head a field of seven 3-year-olds set to go six furlongs in the $10,000 Hall of Fame Handicap at the Columbus Races.

This year, S C King won the four-furlong Bachman Stakes at Fonner Park and the Journal Star Stakes, a six-furlong race at Lincoln.

Chasin the Wind comes off a nose loss to The Straw Man, the top 3-year-old in Nebraska, in the State Fair Derby on June 25 at Lincoln. He has three allowance wins this year.

BOSSIER CITY, La. - Saturday's Senorita Stakes should prove to be a dandy betting affair with its eclectic cast of nine 3-year-old fillies set to go about 1 1/16 miles on the Louisiana Downs turf.

Where's Bailey, who posted two of her four victories over the local grass, might be favored. She comes off two recent starts over the Arlington Park turf course, including a fourth-place finish in the Double Delta Stakes on June 19. Now residing in the barn of Cole Norman, the meet's leading trainer, she will be ridden by a former riding champ here, Gerard Melancon.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Roger Attfield will be at Monmouth Park on Sunday, sending out Palladio in the $1 million Haskell Invitational and Noble Stella in the $150,000 Taylor Made Matchmaker.

But Attfield's attention also will be wandering back to Woodbine, where his assistant, Rachel Halden, will saddle Area Limits for the $500,000 Breeders' Stakes.

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan - Wind Dancer looks to make it four straight wins to start the season and to put a stranglehold on divisional honors in Saturday's $6,500 City of Bridges Stakes at Marquis Downs. The City of Bridges, a one-mile race restricted to Saskatchewan-bred colts and geldings, drew a field of seven, three of whom are still maidens.

Wind Dancer raced just twice last year at 2, both times in stakes, and finished fourth on each occasion. In 2005, however, Wind Dancer has been unbeatable.

FORT ERIE, Ontario - Francine Villeneuve, Canada's career wins leader among female jockeys, is expected to be sidelined for a minimum of six weeks while recuperating from a dislocated shoulder sustained in a spill at Fort Erie last weekend.

In Sunday's seventh race, Villeneuve bailed out of the saddle from Good Luck Strikes when she felt the left front foreleg of her mount break. Good Luck Strikes was contending on the outside at the time and Villeneuve landed clear but on her shoulder.