LEXINGTON, Ky. - Bandini is back in action. After being withheld from the Florida Derby last weekend because of a foot bruise, Bandini worked five furlongs Tuesday morning at Keeneland, where the 15-day spring meet begins Friday.

With Angel Cordero Jr. aboard, Bandini finished in 1:00.60 over a fast track.

"It looks like we're in good shape," said trainer Todd Pletcher. "He worked good, and we're back on schedule. If everything holds together like you'd hope, then we'll be all set for the Blue Grass."

STICKNEY, Ill. - Nine horses went into the Illinois Derby when entries were taken Tuesday at Hawthorne. The question is: Is anything of note coming out of the race?

A Grade 2 with a $500,000 purse, the local derby is an ostensible , and horses are coming in from both coasts and Kentucky. Todd Pletcher and Bill Mott, one-two in the Gulfstream Park trainer standings, each have a starter.

ARCADIA, Calif. - All the even-numbered races Thursday at Santa Anita are downhill turf sprints. Defeats will be easily justified; no layout is trickier to negotiate. Lose the race? Just blame the course.

will be one of the choices in race 6, a nonwinners of two-other-than sprint for fillies and mares that is the richest race on the card. She will be favored despite finishing a dull fifth last out, when odds-on against similar over the downhill turf sprint layout.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Buzzards Bay will start at a big price - 10-1 or higher - on Saturday when he faces the filly Sweet Catomine in the Santa Anita Derby. Not that the jockey for Buzzards Bay will notice.

"I'm not a betting man, so that makes no difference," Mark Guidry said Tuesday morning at Santa Anita, where he worked Buzzards Bay five furlongs for trainer Jeff Mullins. The odds may not matter to Guidry, but they matter to horseplayers who have witnessed the veteran rider's emergence as a Southern California mainstay.

OPELOUSAS, La. - Louisiana racing begins another chapter Thursday night, when the new Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino begins its inaugural season of Thoroughbred racing. Racing operations join the slots casino, which opened in December 2003, to create the country's first facility that has been designed from the ground up to accommodate slots and racing.

OLDSMAR, Fla. - Captain Lindsay has finally found a race where he won't run into a 3-year-old trained by Nick Zito. Rich in Spirit takes on male rivals while shooting for her fourth win from her last five starts. Toscani tries to extend his winning streak to six.

Those three horses top a group of 81 runners entered in the third edition of Florida Cup Day at Tampa Bay Downs on Saturday. The card includes six stakes worth $75,000 apiece. Florida-breds receive first preference, with horses bred in other states only getting in if a race doesn't fill.

Sunland Park ended its 87-day 2004-05 meeting Sunday with a record average in handle, topping the mark set in its previous meet.

The meet drew $63,812,420 in handle on Sunland races, for a daily average of more than $733,000, up 9.1 percent from the record 87-day season of 2003-04. Ontrack handle grew 1.45 percent, and offtrack betting on Sunland races rose more than 5 percent.

Great Canadian Gaming Corp., the owner and operator of Hastings Entertainment, has added another Standardbred track to its holdings. Great Canadian said it reached a deal to purchase all the issued and outstanding shares of Georgian Downs Ltd., a Standardbred racing and slots facility in Innisfil, Ontario, about 45 minutes outside Toronto.

The total value of the deal is roughly $48 million dollars, which includes $23 million of assumed debt. According to Great Canadian, Georgian Downs has about $34 million in total assets, including buildings, land, and undeveloped property.

For the second time in the last three years, Suffolk Downs, has canceled running of the Grade 3, $500,000 Massachusetts Han-dicap. The move is part of the track's suspension of its open stakes program for 2005 because of poor business this past winter.

Also lost to budget restraints is this year's $200,000 James B. Moseley Sprint Handicap. Both the Massachusetts Handicap and Moseley had been slated for June 18.

Ten other $40,000 open stakes races were also canceled. Eight stakes for Massachusetts-breds will remain on the schedule.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff brings together the best fillies and mares from around the country each fall, and in the spring, the same can be said of the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park.

"History speaks for itself," said Ron McAnally, who has won a record three Apple Blossoms and this year will start House of Fortune. "It's one of the best filly and mare races in the country."