ARCADIA, Calif. - Avenueofknowledge, a 6-year-old maiden claimer, won Monday's , winning a $250,000 prize for Deanna Manfredi, a 36-year-old market consultant from Philadelphia. The race marked the conclusion of an eight-episode television series - billed as racing's first reality show - filmed at Santa Anita and shown Mondays on the Game Show Network.

Contestants drafted horses for Monday's one-mile race, and Manfredi took the winner with the fourth selection among the eight finalists.

Manfredi also won ownership of the eight horses in the American Dream Derby.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The good news about Thursday's program at Santa Anita is that it is not supposed to rain.

The bad news is that each of the eight races has nine entrants or fewer, there are no turf races, and the first four races have only five or six entrants.

All that is part of a frustrating winter in Southern California, which has been besieged by near-record rainfall for the past two months. Through Monday, 24 of the first 44 days of the meeting had been run on tracks listed as other than fast.

NEW ORLEANS - Gamaliel Vazquez experienced the worst feeling a horse trainer can know last Sunday, that harrowing moment when your stable star falls on the track in the heat of battle. Pawyne Princess was carrying the hopes of Vazquez and owner Michael Gill down the Fair Grounds backstretch in the when she was pulled up in distress.

NEW ORLEANS - At least half of the horses in Thursday's feature race at Fair Grounds, a $40,000 optional claimer slated for a mile on the turf course, are entered with the expectation that predicted rain throughout the week will wash the race off the grass.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Racing resumes Thursday after a two-day break with a pick-six carryover of $34,817. Feeling lucky? Here are plays of $64 and $192 for those who want to take a shot:

Race 4: The new shooter is by Precise End, last year's leading first-crop New York-bred sire, and out of a Phone Trick mare - in other words, speed on top of speed.

is marginally best among the experienced runners, as long as she gets a fast racetrack. She blew out swiftly last Sunday, 11 days after an against-the-bias effort to finish second.

Those two are on the $64 ticket.

Evangeline Downs, which began operating a slots casino in December 2003, will open for a Quarter Horse meet at its new site in Opelousas, La., on Thursday night. It will be the first meet held at the new track. Evangeline had to move its racing operations from Carencro, La., in order to be eligible to install slot machines. The old Evangeline, about a 20-minute drive from the new track, now operates as a training center.

Evangeline will conduct a 21-night meet for Quarter Horses, racing on Thursday through Sunday and closing March 27. Nightly post time will be 6:45 p.m. Central.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Rockport Harbor went back to the track on Tuesday after missing two days of training with a tender foot, and he remains on pace to make his seasonal debut in the Grade 3, $250,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn on March 19.

"He just jogged and he was perfect," said John Servis, the trainer of Rockport Harbor. Servis went on to say that he was "tickled to death" with the progress Rockport Harbor had made since Sunday.

The return to the track came at least two days earlier than Servis had speculated on Monday.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Greater Good has struck first. One of the "big three" colts based at Oaklawn Park this spring, he lived up to his short odds by winning Saturday's $100,000 Southwest Stakes, the first of three two-turn stakes for 3-year-olds at Oaklawn Park.

Greater Good, who is trained by Bob Holthus, will now advance to the Grade 3, $250,000 Rebel on March 19, a race that will serve as the seasonal debut for both Afleet Alex and Rockport Harbor, who are also based at Oaklawn.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Three Grade 1 stakes will be run in Canada in 2005, topped by the Canadian International, which offers a record purse of $2 million. A total of 37 stakes will be graded for this year, the Canadian Graded Stakes Committee announced Tuesday.

The other two Grade 1 stakes are the E.P. Taylor and Atto Mile, both worth $1 million.

The three Grade 1's are all scheduled to be run on the Woodbine turf course, as are the country's nine Grade 2 races, including the upgraded Nassau and Play the King Handicap.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - King Mobay, a distant third in the San Mateo Mile in his last start, might be favored in Thursday's Bay Meadows feature race, a one-mile first-level allowance race for 3-year-olds. But he will have his hands full with Point Luck.

Though the race drew only five entrants, it is wide open and interesting to handicap.