OCEANPORT, N.J. - Monmouth Park honors Joe Bravo with the ultimate tribute on May 28. Every fan attending that day gets a bobblehead doll of the track's 10-time riding champion.

The collectable has become a major status symbol throughout the sports world.

It is also a fitting promotional item as Bravo recovers from a verbal bobble prior to the Kentucky Derby.

Bravo had his first Derby mount on Spanish Chestnut, who set a fast early pace that, some people thought, was supposed to set up Bandini. Both horses are owned by Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - All aboard! Monmouth Park sails early this year.

The summer racing season on the Jersey Shore gets under way Saturday afternoon with an 11-race card. Post time will be 1:15 p.m. for the first program of the 90-day meet, which runs through Sept. 25.

A deeper jockey colony and an influx of new and returning stables should produce an interesting season.

ELMONT, N.Y. - On a fast track, California shippers Friendly Michelle and Elusive Diva would be the ones to beat in Saturday's $150,000 . But with showers in the forecast, the potential for a wet track could open the Grade 2 race up to fillies with better odds.

Friendly Michelle, trained by Bob Baffert, won the Grade 1 Prioress Stakes over this track last summer. She caught sloppy tracks in the Test at Saratoga, when beaten 14 1/4 lengths, and the Raven Run at Keeneland, beaten 26 1/4 lengths. She has not run in seven months.

ALBANY, Calif. - On paper, Lost in the Fog seems invincible as he guns for his sixth straight victory - and sixth straight triple-digit Beyer - in Saturday's $150,000 Golden Bear Breeders' Cup Stakes at Golden Gate Fields. The six-furlong race for 3-year-olds drew only three horses.

has yet to be tested and shouldn't be tested in Saturday's race, in which he has drawn post 3, outside multiple stakes winner Wind Water and Olympic Miler.

Owner Harry Aleo said he knows Lost in the Fog will be a heavy favorite, but, he said, "I'm still very apprehensive."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It has become an accepted handicapping standard that if a horse runs poorly at Keeneland, you are more than welcome to forgive that bad race when the horse makes his next start at Churchill Downs.

And no one is happier about it than Steve Asmussen.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Jockey Frank Fuentes is off to the best start of his career. As of Thursday, he led the Hastings rider standings with 15 wins and had won with 35 percent of his mounts.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Eight-year-old millionaire Krz Ruckus has already hit for the cycle in the New Providence Stakes, winning it in 2001, finishing second in 2003, and running third in 2002.

He passed up last year's New Providence, but will contest Saturday's renewal of the six-furlong test for older Ontario-sired runners at Woodbine.

From the final crop of leading Canadian sire Bold Ruckus, Krz Ruckus won his first stakes in the 2001 New Providence, then capped a five-race win streak with a victory in the 2001 Overskate Stakes.

CALGARY, Alberta - Sixthirty-joe, a multiple stakes winner of 16 races and $456,918, heads a field of seven in a one-mile optional claimer for older horses, the eighth race at Stampede on Saturday afternoon.

Deanne Davies, who bred the 7-year-old Sixthirtyjoe and has trained him throughout his career, nominated the gelding to the May 21 Teeworth Plate but opted for this much easier spot. Sixthirtyjoe was third to Chief Mtn and Rindanica in the six-furlong Stampede Park Sprint Championship on April 30 after making a bid down the backstretch.

AUBURN, Wash. - Karis Makaw will make her 4-year-old debut in Saturday's six-furlong feature at Emerald Downs, a $40,000 optional claiming affair that has drawn a field of seven older fillies and mares.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Regal Red will be heavily favored to win her seventh straight stakes race in the $40,000 Sun Handicap at Hastings Sunday. The 6 1/2-furlong feature drew eight older fillies and mares, including a three-horse Budget Stable entry consisting of Champagne Royal, Pretty Meadow, and Regal Heir.

Regal Red has been nothing short of spectacular in her short career. She won her maiden by 10 1/2 lengths in her final start as a 2-year-old in 2003, and then won all five of her races in 2004 with the shortest margin of victory 4 1/4 lengths.