ARCADIA, Calif. - Sweet Catomine is not the only stakes-winning filly that trainer Julio Canani is starting at Santa Anita on Saturday.

A couple hours after Sweet Catomine takes on males in the Santa Anita Derby, Shining Energy will represent the stable in the $100,000 Providencia Stakes for 3-year-old fillies over 1 1/8 miles on turf.

is likely to go favored. Since arriving from France last winter, she is unbeaten in two starts - a maiden race on Feb. 5 and a convincing win in the La Habra Stakes over about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course on March 6.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Each of the eight 3-year-olds entered in Saturday's $750,000 has done something to give his connections hope of running in the Kentucky Derby. But none has done enough.

Each will get the chance to earn his way into the Churchill Downs starting gate on May 7 in a Wood field that lacks a true standout. The Wood, which has produced three of the last five Kentucky Derby winners, highlights a 10-race Aqueduct card that also includes the Grade 1 Carter and Grade 3 Bay Shore.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Nobody was happy when it was announced earlier in the meeting that the purse for Saturday's Portland Meadows Mile would be cut from $40,000 to $20,000. Local horsemen with Mile candidates were quick to see a silver lining, however. With a smaller purse, they reasoned, the Mile would be much less likely to lure the tough shippers it has so often drawn in the past.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The Triple Crown trail is becoming an annual event for owner B. Wayne Hughes. But after disappointing trips to the Kentucky Derby the last two years, Hughes is hoping to have something to celebrate this spring.

Next month, Hughes may be headed back to the Kentucky Derby with Don't Get Mad, a top contender in Saturday's $750,000 .

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - A bid for early-season supremacy in the sprint division is on tap Saturday when Forest Danger, Don Six, and Medallist square off in the Grade 1, $350,000 Carter Handicap at Aqueduct.

The Carter, run at seven furlongs, is the first leg of the NTRA Spring Pick 3, followed by the Wood Memorial, also at Aqueduct, and the Illinois Derby from Hawthorne.

The Carter lost one of its key players when Badge of Silver was held out of the race because of a minor injury to a hind foot.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Just when trainer Greg Gilchrist had gotten Lost in the Fog to relax, it may be time for him to summon his colt's brilliant speed again.

drew the rail for Saturday's $150,000 Bay Shore Stakes, perhaps the only knock on the unbeaten 3-year-old who, on paper, towers over his six rivals in the Grade 3 race at seven furlongs. Because Lost in the Fog is such a standout, the New York Racing Association will ban show wagering on the Bay Shore.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Eddington served notice this winter in Florida that he intends to be a major player in the handicap division, with a dominant win in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap and a third-place finish to Saint Liam and Roses in May in the Grade 1 Donn.

will be a strong favorite in Saturday's Grade 2, $500,000 Oaklawn Handicap at Oaklawn Park. The Oaklawn 'Cap will be run as race 9 on the Million Dollar Saturday card and begins a special daily double with the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap, which will be run as race 11.

CHICAGO - It is a year in which the entire 3-year-old crop was diminished by the strange mare reproductive loss syndrome during the 2001 Kentucky breeding season. It is a weekend with two Grade A Kentucky Derby prep races, the Wood Memorial and the Santa Anita Derby.

It is, in other words, the wrong time for the Illinois Derby to attract a star-studded field.

Instead, the Grade 2, $500,000 Illinois Derby will unfold as a proving ground. Only two of the nine horses entered in the 1 1/8-mile race have graded stakes experience. Four others have never run in a stakes.

CHICAGO - The breathtakingly fast Lost in the Fog briefly was mentioned as a candidate for the Lost Code Breeders' Cup Stakes on Saturday at Hawthorne, but the colt has instead gone to Aqueduct for Saturday's Bay Shore Stakes. And nobody with a horse in the Lost Code is crying about it.

"I would have to think without that horse being in there, we would look pretty good," said trainer Bill Mott, who has shipped Around the Cape in from Florida for Saturday's race.

Rapid Proof upset the Grade 2 Mervin Muniz last month at 31-1, but he will be a much shorter price Saturday night, when he starts in the $200,000 Connally Breeders' Cup Turf Handicap at Sam Houston Race Park.

should go favored in the 1 1/8-mile turf race, which closes out the meet and ranks as the richest offering of the season. He will face seven others, including Warleigh, who won the race last year, and Candid Glen, who has won it a record three times, from 2001-2003.