INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Trainer Bill Currin is convinced that Bashert will be helped by the presence of top 2-year-old What a Song in Saturday's $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile Championship at Hollywood Park.

Trainer Bob Baffert is convinced that What a Song would be better off in the six-furlong Juvenile Championship if Bashert were absent.

"I'd feel a lot better if he wasn't in there," Baffert said, referring to Bashert. "They're going to run really hard."

That is precisely what Currin wants for Bashert.

Canterbury Park is not the only track on Saturday showcasing former claiming horses. So, too, is Ellis Park. By coincidence, May Gator and Rue des Reves, both plucked from claiming races earlier in their careers, are among the favorites in Saturday's $100,000 HBPA Handicap.

The conditions of the HBPA suit both mares. They specialize in grass, and each has won at the race's mile distance.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Trainer Marvin Hayes said Forrest G. was hungry after his win in a division of the $135,000 Texas Thoroughbred Association Sales Futurity last month at Lone Star Park: Hungry for his dinner, and hungry for more distance.

The dinner was devoured long ago, and the distance, it comes on Saturday. Forrest G. will pick up an additional furlong in the $75,000 Middleground Breeders' Cup, a six-furlong race for 2-year-olds that will share a program with the $75,000 Silver Spur Breeders' Cup on what is the next-to-last day of the meet at Lone Star.

VALLEJO, Calif. - This is where it all began for Yerevan Star and where it might all begin for Mahalo.

made her stakes debut at the Solano County Fair last year, winning the Fairfield Stakes. She'll be the one that Mahalo has to beat Saturday as Mahalo makes her stakes debut in the $50,000 Vacaville Handicap for fillies and mares at six furlongs.

Since the Fairfield last year, Yerevan Star has added thirds in the Richmond and Woodside handicaps and a victory in the Camila Urso in her last start.

When trainer Troy Young is asked to recount the best horses he ever has trained, B.J.'s Delta Pro is always one of the first names he mentions. She won 7 of the first 8 races of her career by a combined 35 lengths and earned $249,387 in all.

B.J.'s Delta Pro, who won five stakes races, went on to become a broodmare, and Young now trains her best offspring, the gelding J.D.'s Bayou Blue.

J.D.'s Bayou Blue has won 2 stakes in his last 3 starts, and despite moving into open company on Saturday, he is the one to beat in the $50,000 Alliance at Louisiana Downs.

Oh So Easy appears perfectly spotted to win her second consecutive race in Saturday's $75,000 Rose DeBartolo Memorial Stakes at Thistledown.

A 5-year-old Take That Step mare, Oh So Easy comes into the nine-furlong DeBartolo off an impressive 5 1/4-length win in the Merry Time Stakes here June 18. She beat three of the seven Ohio-bred rivals she will face Saturday in the Merry Time.

Oh So Easy has carved out a 10-4-3 record from 29 career starts and has earnings of $293,970.

Graysideofjustice heads a field of 11, including an entry, in Saturday's $40,000 ITBOA Sales Futurity at Prairie Meadows.

The 5 1/2-furlong futurity is restricted to horses who passed through the sales ring here at the the Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association 2-year-olds in training sale in April.

Graysideofjustice is the most impressive of the four winners entered in the futurity, having scored a convincing six-length victory over maiden special weight company here on June 14 to earn a field-topping Beyer Speed Figure of 62.

AUBURN, Wash. - Full Force Gale drops a notch in search of his first win at the meeting in Saturday's best race at Emerald Downs, a six-furlong event for $12,500 to $15,000 claimers that has drawn a field of seven.

EDMONTON, Alberta - Knight's Covenant, the 25-1 winner of the June 18 Alberta Derby, looks for his second straight stakes victory when he faces eight other 3-year-olds at Northlands Park in Saturday's one-mile Ky Alta.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Slewpast will probably be the favorite in the $40,000 Liberation at Hastings on Saturday, but she could be vulnerable in the 1 1/16-mile feature, which drew seven 3-year-old fillies.

Slewpast, trained by Robbie Anderson, is a three-time stakes winner, and in her first try going around three turns, she finished second to Regal Pusher in the Dikeakos Architects Mademoiselle Handicap on June 17. The Liberation should shape up completely differently from the Mademoiselle, though.