Remington Park was awarded a 66-date meet for Thoroughbreds for 2005 by the Oklahoma Racing Commission on Thursday. The dates, from Aug. 5 to Nov. 27, are similar to this year's.
Remington was also granted a 32-date meet for Quarter Horses from March 19 to June 5.
Blue Ribbon Downs will race two meets next year, both mixed meets with races for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses. The first will run 27 days from Feb. 19 to May 7, and the second will run 33 days from Aug. 6 to Oct. 30.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Cajun Beat, the winner of the 2003 Breeders' Cup Sprint and fifth in the 2004 Sprint last month, might start in Friday's $150,000 Hollywood Turf Express at Hollywood Park.
Trainer Bobby Frankel said he was encouraged by Cajun Beat's five-furlong workout in 1:01.40 at Hollywood Park on Friday and is leaning toward starting Cajun Beat in the Turf Express over 5 1/2 furlongs instead of the $100,000 Vernon Underwood Stakes over six furlongs on dirt on Dec. 5.
"It's $50,000 more," Frankel said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The comeback trail has begun for Madcap Escapade, the speedy filly who incurred a hip fracture about two weeks after her unbeaten record was snapped in the April 30 Kentucky Oaks, in which she was third. The injury did not require surgery.
In her first workout since getting time off, Madcap Escapade breezed three furlongs here Friday in 36.60 seconds over a sloppy track. She has been back in training at Churchill for about two months.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Todd Pletcher will be losing many of his top sprinters to retirement at year's end. He appears to have at least one solid replacement.
Friendly Island is a supremely talented New York-bred sprinter. He will get his sternest test to date Thurs-day, when he faces open stakes company for the first time in the $100,000 Fall Highweight Handicap at Aqueduct. The Grade 3 event, run at six furlongs, kicks off NYRA's HolidayFest weekend consisting of six stakes.
MIAMI - Trainer Sandra Slivka will be hoping lightning can strike a second time if Stormy Rosa makes her turf debut, as planned, in Saturday's $100,000 Frances Genter Stakes.
Last month, Slivka put her other top 3-year-old filly, Hopelessly Devoted, on grass for the first time in the Calder Oaks and was rewarded with a 2 3/4-length victory. Stormy Rosa, whom Slivka claimed for $25,000 last winter at Gulfstream Park, does not have quite the back class or the experience of Hopelessly Devoted, but she is at the top of her game after winning her last three starts.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The once-beaten Roving Angel will try to rebound from the drubbing she took in the Grade 2 Astarita when she starts Sunday in the $136,875 Glorious Song Stakes, a seven-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies.
Roving Angel defeated the talented Victorious Ami when she won her debut in August, but she was scratched at the gate when in against males in the Sept. 6 Silver Deputy Stakes. Four days later, she won a six-furlong allowance in a romp, and then captured the Finger Lakes Juvenile Filly Stakes by 7 1/4 lengths.
Major Rhythm returns to Remington Park on Sunday for the first time since setting a course record in the $125,000 DeBartolo Memorial in September, and the field he will encounter in the $50,000 Remington Green seems even deeper than the cast he defeated in his last trip to Oklahoma City.
STICKNEY, Ill. - There is no real featured race Sunday at Hawthorne, just tangle after tangle, knot after knot of difficult handicapping. The puzzles begin in the first race and run right through the two allowance races on the nine-race program: the seventh, an open entry-level allowance, and the eighth, a second-level allowance restricted to statebreds.
ALBANY, Calif. - Milestones have become a way of life for Hall of Fame jockey Russell Baze, but his latest caught him totally unaware Thursday at Golden Gate Fields.
Baze rode four winners, including the final three races of the day, and moved past Pat Day into third place on the all-time career victory list. Baze ended the day with 8,772 victories, one more than Day, who picked up one win himself on Thursday at Churchill Downs.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Texcess is making a late-season push for the California-bred 2-year-old male championship, a title he can clinch with a victory in the $1 million Delta Jackpot Stakes at Delta Downs in Louisiana on Dec. 4.
Since making his debut with a second in the Barretts Juvenile Stakes at Fairplex Park on Sept. 19, Texcess has won consecutive starts in the $125,000 Califor-nia Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita on Oct. 16 and an allowance race at Hollywood Park last Sunday.