INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The comparisons seemed just. As with Six Perfections, Denebola is a near-black filly with an attractive white blaze who closed her 2-year-old campaign with a victory in France's biggest race for 2-year-old fillies, the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac. Both are homebreds of the Niarchos family's Flaxman Holdings Ltd. Both are trained by Pascal Bary.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Noches de Rosa, the winner of major stakes in Chile and California, has been retired after a series of disappointing races in recent months.

Thursday at Hollywood Park, Noches de Rosa finished fifth in the Hermosa Beach Handicap, the third consecutive stakes in which she failed to finish in the top three. She was last of 11 in the Grade 1 Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington Park in August and seventh in the Grade 1 Yellow Ribbon Stakes at Santa Anita last month.

"She seems to have lost interest on me," trainer Richard Mandella said.

MIAMI - Trainers entering their horses in a $40,000 overnight stakes at Calder on the last weekend of November wouldn't normally expect the opposition to include a member of the Breeders' Cup Classic field. But such will be the case here Sunday, when Dynever starts in the 1 1/16-mile Mel's Hope Stakes.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - After twice facing the top older fillies and mares in training and then holding her own with New York-bred males in the Empire Classic, Board Elligible should find some class relief in Sunday's $75,000 Montauk Handicap for statebred fillies and mares at Aqueduct.

Sunday's card, which features 10 races including the rescheduled Fall Highweight Handicap, will start at noon.

A controversial disqualification at Thistledown last Saturday has been appealed and may lead to the resignation of the track's state steward.

Slewrenity, a 2-5 favorite ridden by jockey Julio Felix, scored a 3 1/2-length victory over Lac Grape in Saturday's sixth race, a six-furlong allowance for horses who had never won two races.

Lyndon Hannigan, who rode Lac Grape, claimed foul against the winner, alleging that Felix struck his mount in the face with his whip near the sixteenth marker.

Hunker down, burrow in, or do whatever it is you do when a long winter is coming. Turfway Park kicks off four months-plus of racing Sunday, and, if nothing else, racing fans should bring their overcoats, ski masks, and plenty of wagering capital to stay in action.

Technically, Turfway divides its winter into two segments: the holiday meet, which runs to Dec. 31, and the winter-spring meet, which runs Jan. 1 through April 8. But except for maybe government regulators, no one notices a difference, and so the winter becomes one huge dose of Turfway.

The most dominant figure at Turfway Park in recent years has not been a particular owner, trainer, or jockey. Instead, it has been jockey agent Steve Elzey, who seemingly could sell ice to Eskimos.

Fair Grounds opened its first day under the new management of Churchill Downs Inc. on Thursday with a bang. The crowd of 7,465 that filled the grandstand to the brim was the third-largest attendance in the eight-year-old history of the new building. The packed house created the kind of shoulder-to-shoulder buzz among fans that recalls racing's glory days. It was a far cry from last season's gloomy opening day, which drew a much smaller crowd against the backdrop of long-simmering unrest from horsemen over a suit that would force the track into bankruptcy.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Saint Liam won the Grade 2 at Churchill Downs on Friday in the unlikely role of a 6-5 favorite still seeking his first stakes win. Granted, he had been terrific in a neck defeat to Ghostzapper in his previous start, but given the 130-year history of the Clark, a venerable race for 3-year-olds and upward, it seemed highly improbable that a non-stakes winner would be so fancied.

Storm Flag Flying is heading to the breeding shed, but trainer Shug McGaughey and the Phipps family may have a replacement in Daydreaming.

Daydreaming won her second straight graded stakes, taking the lead approaching the sixteenth pole and then holding off a late run from an unlucky Bending Strings to win Friday's Grade 2, $150,000 by a nose before 5,570 at Aqueduct. It was 2 1/4 lengths back to Roar Emotion in third.