Vals Fortune, the millionaire Quarter Horse who set a track record at Delta Downs the last time he raced at the track, is among those considered possible for the Grade 3, $100,000 Louisiana Classic Stakes on Sunday at Delta.

The Classic is one of seven Louisiana-bred stakes for Quarter Horses that will make up the final card of the meet. The richest stakes on the program is the Grade 2, $336,150 Lee Berwick Futurity.

For some stables - as with baseball's postseason - the top of the rotation is king, especially when the stakes are at their highest.

Such logic is not lost on Leroy Hellman. A veteran trainer at Fairmount Park, Hellman ranks seventh in wins with 21 this meet and is third in earnings with $213,846. The reason: a fearsome foursome that includes the track's top older female in horse of the year candidate Lady Riss and two of the track's best males, Matched and Canyon de Oro. Denoun N Deverb, a 3-year-old filly, rounds out the quartet.

R.D. Williams took command of the rider standings and has all but assured himself of a second straight title at the Nebraska State Fair Park at Lincoln after winning six races on last Friday night's card.

Fast Talkin Val became the Texas representative for the Grade 1, $300,000 MBNA America Challenge Championship for Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos on Nov. 5 after he won the Grade 1, $107,190 MBNA Texas Challenge Championship last Saturday night at Sam Houston.

Fast Talkin Val ($6.60) covered 440 yards in 21.53 seconds. Gilbert Ortiz rode the horse for trainer Heath Taylor, who ranks second in the nation in wins among Quarter Horse trainers in 2005. Taylor said Fast Talkin Val could start at Los Alamitos before the MBNA America.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Chicago lies at the eastern edge of the Central Time Zone, which means during December night starts creeping in not long past lunch. The darkness seems to fall harder at Hawthorne Race Course, where the horses run amid a cityscape of oil storage tanks, a tin plant, and a waste management terminal.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - No speed, no chance. That's the recent theme on the speed-favoring main track at Hollywood Park, where eight fillies and mares run 1 1/16 miles in the seventh-race feature on Thursday.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Del Mar will be home for Woke Up Dreamin this summer, but he is due for a break after winning his second straight graded sprint last Sunday.

"He's had two good, hard races," trainer Bob Baffert said, adding that Woke Up Dreamin popped a small quarter crack after the Grade 2 Smile on Sunday at Calder. "I'm going to freshen him up, run him once this fall, then the Breeders' Cup."

The Breeders' Cup will be held Oct. 29 at Belmont Park, where Woke Up Dreamin won the Grade 2 True North Handicap.

Prospects for the seventh annual Claiming Crown have begun converging this week from all across North America to compete Saturday in the seven-race, $650,000 series at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn.

Claiming Crown coordinator Nat Wess said Tuesday that flights transporting horses from California and New York were scheduled to arrive in Minneapolis on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, respectively, and that horses from Kentucky, Chicago, and elsewhere "are coming in one, two, and three at a time."

King's Drama made 2004 his coming-out party. In addition to scoring two big allowance wins, he had good efforts behind some of the best turf horses in the world - Sulamani, Brian Boru, Magistretti, Epalo, and Meteor Storm.

Apprentice jockey Shannon Campbell has been paralyzed from the waist down as the result of an accident Saturday night at Charles Town Races in West Virginia.

Campbell, 34, was thrown when her 35-1 mount, Makin Violets, clipped heels going into the turn of the first race, a $5,000 maiden claiming race at 4 1/2 furlongs. The accident severed Campbell's spinal cord just above the waist, according to Jesus Sanchez, a rider's representative at the track, and Campbell's agent, Jodi Ramsburg.