AUBURN, Wash. - Only five 3-year-old fillies will line up against Queenledo in Sunday's Irish Day Handicap, and if she wins that one-mile test in the same fashion that she won the last two stakes for the division, there will be even fewer willing to take her on in the future.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - With less than three weeks until the first major race on the Hastings schedule, the Grade 3, $125,000 Lieutenant Governors' on July 1, perennial powerhouse Lord Nelson is looking tough again but could face a challenge from a horse half his age, the 4-year-old Quiet Cash.

ELMONT, N.Y. - The temperature is expected to approach 90 degrees. The race is run one around one turn. These are not a few of Funny Cide's favorite things.

Still, it is June 11 and Funny Cide, the champion 3-year-old of 2003, has run just once in 224 days. Trainer Barclay Tagg said that despite the forecasted heat Funny Cide will run in Saturday's Grade 2, $250,000 Brooklyn Handicap at Belmont Park. While Funny Cide will most likely be favored against eight rivals, he is no cinch.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Once trainer Greg Gilchrist and owner Harry Aleo decided this spring to bypass the allure of the Triple Crown to focus strictly on sprints for Lost in the Fog, the Breeders' Cup Sprint became the ultimate year-end goal. Saturday, Lost in the Fog will get a dress rehearsal.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Jimmy Jerkens suffered some anxious moments during the running of the Grade 2 Dixie on Preakness Day at Pimlico when his horse Artie Schiller bobbled twice in the stretch.

While racing in tight quarters on the inside, Artie Schiller stumbled at the eighth pole and again at the sixteenth pole and wound up losing by a nose to Cool Conducter.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Bobby Frankel has decided to make an equipment change when Mass Media runs in Saturday's $200,000 True North Breeders' Cup Handicap at Belmont Park.

will race with blinkers off for the first time in his 11-race career. Frankel said Mass Media has trained well without blinkers and would like to see him relax during the early stages of his races.

Mass Media is among 12 entered in a wide-open edition of the Grade 2 True North.

In his last start, Mass Media finished fifth in the Grade 1 Carter on April 9 at Aqueduct, his third loss of the year.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Bobby Frankel will run eight horses in seven races on Saturday's 13-race card at Belmont Park. If he only wins one, it will most likely be the Grade 2, $300,000 Just a Game Breeders' Cup Handicap.

Frankel will send out Intercontinental, who won this race last year and who may just be the best female turf miler in the country. At this distance and over firm turf, Intercontinental appears to have an edge over Grade 1 winners Wonder Again and Riskaverse, who both make their seasonal debuts in this race.

Monmouth Park will offer three competitive stakes races on Saturday. Sprinters meet in two of those events, the $60,000 Coronado's Quest, at six furlongs for 3-year-olds, and the $65,000 Longfellow, a six-furlong race for 3-year-olds and upward. The $60,000 Battlefield Stakes, for 3-year-olds and upward, will be run at 1 1/8 miles over the turf course.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Five of the six juvenile fillies in Thursday's $81,000 were unbeaten going in, but only one, Fifth Avenue, remained perfect after posting a nose decision over 27-1 outsider Blissful Trip in the five-furlong dash.

Fifth Avenue, a debut winner for trainer Mark Hennig earlier at Belmont Park's spring/summer meet, stalked pacesetter Stolen Prayer from close range around the turn through an opening quarter of 21.92 seconds, reached the front coming to midstretch after a half-mile in 45.46 seconds, and determinedly staved off Blissful Trip to the wire.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The odd distance of 7 1/2 furlongs for Saturday's $75,000 Ack Ack Handicap at Hollywood Park is the ideal middle ground for top contenders Congrats and Ender's Shadow.

Congrats, who in his last start finished fifth in the $6 million Dubai World Cup March 26, was not ready for the $750,000 Stephen Foster Handicap over 1 1/8 miles at Churchill Downs on June 18, trainer Richard Mandella said.