SHAKOPEE, Minn. - The name is now widely recognized within the racing industry, and its reputation is solid. The Claiming Crown, in its sixth year as concept-turned-reality, is capitalizing on its positive history by making deeper inroads into the world of simulcasting.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Lion Heart earned widespread admiration with his gutsy pacesetting efforts in the Kentucky Derby and the Blue Grass Stakes.

Admiration can never substitute for victory.

Lion Heart, winless in four starts this year, should finally break through Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Long Branch Breeders' Cup Stakes at Monmouth Park. The Long Branch is Monmouth's traditional prep for the $1 million Haskell Invitational, to be run on Aug. 8.

Lion Heart will be a very short price in his first start since finishing fourth in the Preakness.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Chandtrue has trained so well in recent weeks that trainer Bob Hess Jr. said it was nearly impossible to pass Saturday's $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile Championship at Hollywood Park.

After winning two stakes at this meeting with Chandtrue, Hess and owner Harold Greene were thinking of skipping the Juvenile in favor of a stakes at Del Mar.

"I keep saying I'll pass the next stakes, and I keep going," Hess said. "The horse has been saying to me he's ready. The only concern was to do right by my horse."

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Attorney Neil Papiano was expected to appear in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday to request a stay that would allow jockey Patrick Valenzuela to resume riding until a hearing is conducted on his recent suspension for failing to submit to a hair-follicle test.

A hearing before Hollywood Park stewards was scheduled for Thursday, but was postponed after the stewards granted a request for continuance to deputy attorney general Jim Ahern, who asked for more time to schedule an expert witness to discuss hair-follicle testing and analysis.

Moments after Sandra Slivka put in a claim for a 2-year-old maiden filly at Calder Race Course last December, she feared she might have made a huge mistake.

The filly, a first-time starter named Hopelessly Devoted whom Slivka had been watching breeze during training hours, looked simply terrible in the paddock.

In each of the last five years, trainer Graham Motion has won a stakes during the Delaware Handicap Festival of Racing. If that streak is to continue, Motion needs Alternate to recapture her best form Saturday.

Alternate, winless in four starts this year, is Motion's lone entrant in the seven stakes that will be run Saturday and Sunday at Delaware Park. She's listed as the 3-1 morning-line favorite and 119-pound highweight in the $150,000 Robert G. Dick Memorial Breeders' Cup, a 1 3/8-mile turf race for fillies and mares. She's also the defending champion.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Kicken Kris is coming off two subpar efforts, which has left his trainer, Michael Matz, a bit baffled.

Saturday at Belmont Park in the $150,000 Bowling Green Handicap, Matz is hoping Kicken Kris returns to the solid form he had last year when he won the Grade 1 Secretariat at Arlington Park.

carries 117 pounds as the highweight in the Grade 2 Bowling Green, which drew 11 male turf runners.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Dale Romans has already won two big stakes this month, the $300,000 Virginia Derby at Colonial Downs with Kitten's Joy and the $300,000 Cornhusker at Prairie Meadows with Roses in May. A week from Saturday, Romans will shoot for another major win in the Grade 1, $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont Park with Dynaville.

On Thursday, Dynaville worked seven furlongs in 1:30.46 over Belmont's main track to prepare for the 1 1/4-mile CCA Oaks. After two days of off-and-on rain, the track was listed as muddy for the morning workouts.

CHICAGO - Okay, there's no Smarty Jones here, no Rock Hard Ten. Saturday's Round Table Stakes at Arlington has nine horses, and only two of them have so much as set foot in a graded stakes. And that's what the Round Table is: a $100,000 race restricted to 3-year-olds that either are unable to compete in the high echelon, or have not yet gotten the chance.

Moreover, the Round Table offers something increasingly rare in American racing - distance. The race is at nine furlongs on dirt, a distance that can separate true route horses from speedy milers.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Trainer Jamie Woodington hopes the second half of the Monmouth Park season is more productive for her barn than the first half.

"It's been a slow summer," said Woodington. "Some horses were just not ready, and we'd hoped they would be better than what they are."

Woodington, 0 for 23 through Thursday, hopes to get rolling Saturday with American Freedom in the second division of the $60,000 Elkwood Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on the turf.