BOSSIER CITY, La. - Bettors may have a difficult time establishing a favorite in Sunday's optional claiming feature. The one-mile turf affair is chock-full of steady veterans as well as some younger performers still trying to get through their conditions.

Notable Okie moves to the grass after just missing on the main track last time and may be a lukewarm public choice. A 4-year-old Editor's Note gelding, Notable Okie won the E. L. Gaylord Memorial Stakes on the turf last fall at Remington at Sunday's one-mile distance. Luis Quinonez will ride for trainer Donnie Von Hemel.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Only six Minnesota-breds will run in the $40,000 Timeless Prince Stakes for statebred 2-year-olds, but the assembled cast suggests the outcome of this 5 1/2-furlong contest will have a major bearing on the Northern Lights Futurity and Debutante later this month at Canterbury Park.

Darby's Price, the easiest of winners in an open maiden at Thistledown on July 1, seeks to add a stakes victory to her growing resume when she faces nine Ohio-bred 2-year-old fillies in the $40,000 Kevin Goemmer Tah Dah Stakes on Sunday at River Downs.

Known as the Tah Dah Stakes in recent years, River Downs officials renamed the 5 1/2-furlong stakes in memory of Goemmer, the track's former announcer, who died suddenly in January at age 48.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer seems to be holding all the aces when he saddles four of the six entrants in Sunday's $40,000-added Luther Burbank Handicap at the Sonoma County Fair: A Reel Tizzy, Hippogator, Gonetorule, and Marwood.

The Hollendorfer fillies will run as three betting interests. A Reel Tizzy and Hippogator will be an entry in the 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - L. T. McCarthy has gotten off to a great start as a licensed trainer. The first horse she saddled, Notis Otis, won his debut and then came back to win the Ladnesian Stakes. McCarthy came back to reality when she sent out heavily favored Delta Monarch for her debut last Sunday and, in McCarthy's words, "he ran like a green baby," finishing sixth.

Notis Otis figures to be one of the favorites in the British Columbia Cup Nursery on B.C. Cup Day, Monday.

AUBURN, Wash. - Sunday's 6 1/2-furlong Knights Choice Stakes for 2-year-old fillies is part of the Northwest Stallion Series, which means it is restricted to the daughters of stallions who were nominated in the year of their conception.

That cuts out the two most impressive juvenile fillies on the grounds - Angie C. Stakes winner Charming Colleen and maiden special weight winner A Classic Life, who are both by Kentucky stallions - but it opens the door wide to a host of promising prospects by local sires.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - There will be no rubber match between Niigon, the Queen's Plate winner, and A Bit O'Gold, winner of the Prince of Wales, in the third leg of Canada's Triple Crown at Woodbine next Sunday.

Niigon, owned by Chiefswood Stable and trained by Eric Coatrieux, was not even nominated to the $500,000 Breeders', a 1 1/2-mile turf race for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds, and is casting his sights farther afield.

"So far, he's going to go to Saratoga, for the Jim Dandy," said Coatrieux. "If he runs in the top three, I guess we'll try the Travers.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Trainer Valorie Lund will be looking for her first stakes victory at Assiniboia Downs when she sends out Stolen Sheena and I B Right Back in Sunday's $40,000 Winnipeg Sun Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles.

Stolen Sheena won the Assiniboia Oaks at this distance last year. A 4-year-old daughter of Is It True, Stolen Sheena was claimed from her last start for $16,000. She breaks from the rail with Jason Eads in the irons.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Eye of the Sphynx and Touchnow, winners of the first two races of the Canadian triple crown for 3-year-old fillies, will renew their rivalry Sunday on the grass in the third leg of the series, the $250,000 Wonder Where Stakes at Woodbine.

River Downs canceled racing Friday after its sixth race, citing unsafe track conditions caused by a heavy mid-afternoon downpour. Steward Phillip Gore said the track wished to continue racing but that the jockeys refused to ride.