DEL MAR, Calif. - It's come down to two. Jeff Mullins and Doug O'Neill are locked in a pitched battle to unseat Bob Baffert as the new training champ at Del Mar. Entering Friday's card, O'Neill led Mullins, 24-23, with Baffert another six back with 17.

For the first time since 1996, a name other than Baffert will be atop the standings when the meet ends Wednesday. A pivotal race in the battle between O'Neill and Mullins might be Sunday's $125,000 Solana Beach Handicap, in which both trainers will send out two runners.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Julio Canani speaks English. Sort of. But you still need a translator. When he goes on intertrack television and says, "I don't bet," that means he cashed. When he calls a horse a "cucaracha," that means the horse can run. And when he says after a work that a horse "galloped good," wait to see if he subsequently smiles, which means everything went perfectly.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - After two failed attempts to return to the races, Film Maker makes her first start since early July in the Grade 3, $100,000 Glens Falls at Saratoga on Sunday.

The Glens Falls drew 17 horses and was split into two divisions. In addition to saddling Film Maker in the tougher second division, race 10, trainer Graham Motion will also saddle the German-bred Humaita and Alternate in the first division, race 7.

In a town where they once booed Santa Claus, one could only wonder what kind of reception Nick Zito would receive if he were to show up Monday at Philadelphia Park for the Grade 2 .

Zito is the trainer of Birdstone, who handed hometown hero Smarty Jones his only defeat in the Belmont Stakes in June. Furthermore, Birdstone's victory in last Saturday's Travers puts him in position to vault past Smarty Jones for the Eclipse Award as the division's top 3-year-old.

John Velazquez broke his own Saratoga meet record for victories by a jockey on Friday, and fittingly enough he tied the record and then broke it aboard horses for his first-call trainer, Todd Pletcher.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Only four of the previous 46 runnings of the Man o' War Stakes have been won by a 3-year-old. The first to do it was Secretariat in 1973. The last to do it was Defensive Play in 1990.

Trainer Bobby Frankel hopes Greek Sun is the next to do it when he runs in next Saturday's Grade 1, $500,000 Man o' War Stakes at Belmont Park.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Last Dec. 19, trainer Troy Bainum put in a claim for two horses at Hollywood Park. He lost the shake for Western View, who finished second in the second race, a $16,000 claimer. He put in a claim before the third race for Black Bart, who finished last for $16,000 - his third straight last-place finish.

As it turns out, Bainum got the right horse.

Western View has started 10 times since Dec. 19 and has won two allowance races.

The distance of next year's $500,000 WinStar Derby has been increased from 1 1/16 miles to 1 1/8 miles for its third running next year. The race is the richest of 50 stakes scheduled for the 87-date Sunland Park meet, which runs from Nov. 5, 2004, to April 3, 2005.

Purses during the meet are expected to average more than $210,000 a day. Sunland, which operates a slots casino, is located in Sunland Park New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - One for Rose versus Winning Chance, one of the best local rivalries over the past two seasons, will played out again here Sunday in the $125,625 Algoma Stakes.

The Algoma, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares, which attracted just four entrants, is one of the six yearling sales stakes for Canadian-breds that annually presage the September yearling sale here.

The selected session for this year's auction begins at 1 p.m. Tuesday, with the open sessions starting at 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

With a team led by the fastest qualifier, Brookstone Bay, and two major stakes winners, A Regal Choice and Planet Holland, trainer Paul Jones will start five of the 10 finalists in Sunday's $553,592 All American Derby for Quarter Horses at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico.

Planet Holland, coupled with trial winner Dejon, is the likely favorite. Planet Holland was third in the 2003 All American Futurity. Earlier this year, he was second in the Ruidoso Derby and third in the Rainbow Derby.