SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - A year ago, Charles Hayward was on a self-proclaimed victory tour. He was part of a group that had just sold Daily Racing Form and was taking the paper's new owners to selected hot spots of racing around the country. Hayward made it here to enjoy the last 2 1/2 weeks of the Saratoga meet as a fan.

Now, Hayward is in his ninth month as president and CEO of the New York Racing Association. And as NYRA gets set to open the doors on Saratoga's 137th meet Wednesday, Hayward finds himself on the hot seat on many fronts.

EDMONTON, Alberta - It's not enough that Vancouver invaders have made the winner's circle their private domain for Alberta stakes races in the filly-mare division this year. In Saturday's $50,000 John Patrick Memorial, they came under the wire one-two-three.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Mike Luzzi had a lot to look forward to entering the 2004 Saratoga meeting. He was coming off a stellar Belmont Park stand where he had won 34 races. He and his family were about to spend their first summer in a new home they had purchased the previous December.

"Family life was good, I felt good riding, I liked coming to work every day," Luzzi recalled in a recent interview. "I just felt balanced."

Less than a quarter of a mile into the first race on opening day, Luzzi lost his balance. Suddenly, life wasn't as good anymore.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott isn't one to make a big deal over his accomplishments, but he did allow for a small smile when commenting on the training title he just won at the Belmont Park spring-summer meet.

It was the sixth Belmont spring-summer training title won by Mott, and his first since 2000. It was also his first championship at any New York meet since Saratoga in 2001. Mott, who will turn 52 on Friday, has won or tied for eight training titles at Saratoga since 1992.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Todd Pletcher hopes a freshening and a return to Saratoga will provide the proper tonic for Purge, who is entered in a very tough 6 1/2-furlong allowance race on the opening-day card Wednesday.

Purge scored his most prestigious victory here last summer in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy. Unfortunately, he hasn't won since. Purge finished fourth in the Travers and sixth in the Cigar Mile to end his 3-year-old season. In two starts this year, Purge was badly beaten in a pair of Grade 3 stakes.

DEL MAR, Calif. - In recent weeks in northern and Southern California, Cougar Mtn Lodge, Don Jaun Con, and Irish Bar won maiden races or stakes in a style that demanded attention.

The victories have pushed those 2-year-olds toward the fore of the statebred division and set up an intriguing showdown in Wednesday's $125,000 Graduation Stakes over 5 1/2 furlongs at Del Mar.

, who won a maiden race by six lengths at Hollywood Park on June 25, will be a deserving favorite, but Don Jaun Con and Irish Bar deserve respect.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Last year, Pico Central was kept out of the Breeders' Cup Sprint, a move that made sense financially, since he would have had to have been supplemented, but which, coupled with a season-ending loss in the Cigar Mile, ultimately cost him a divisional championship.

CHICAGO - Saturday's Million Preview Day at Arlington will live up to its name this year, since the winner of the Arlington Handicap, Cool Conductor, is expected to be back in Chicago for the Aug. 13 Arlington Million.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Hammered has already passed this test, yet he gets a free ride at the same allowance condition in Wednesday's featured $51,000 race for New Jersey-breds at Monmouth Park.

Having already been here and done this, Hammered should be a very short-priced favorite against six rivals going six furlongs.

Hammered is a 3-year-old gelding making his fourth start for Penn National-based trainer Todd Beattie. Each race was more impressive than the one that preceded it.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Bob Tiller will be holding a strong hand Wednesday at Woodbine when he runs Top Ten List and Simply Lovely in the $125,000 Passing Mood Stakes, a seven-furlong turf race for Ontario-sired 3-year-old fillies.

Top Ten List, a competent dirt runner, made her grass debut on July 10 a memorable one, leading all the way through fast fractions in the restricted Ontario Damsel Stakes.

Tiller had high hopes for Top Ten List going into the Damsel, and was elated with her performance.