Open Promise will be a short price to win her 12th career race Friday when she starts in the featured first race at Louisiana Downs. A five-furlong turf allowance, Open Promise will be switching back to the grass after winning a six-furlong optional claimer on dirt. For her effort in that race, she earned a career-best 104 Beyer Speed Figure.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The four most recent runnings of the $1 million Queen's Plate, North America's oldest continuously run stakes race, have yielded a wide variety of results.

Scatter the Gold, a blue-blooded Sam-Son Farm runner, won the 2000 Plate as a maiden, and his full sister, Dancethruthedawn, became the 33rd filly to win the race in 2001.

COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - Apprentice jockey Renee Torbit rode her first career double last Friday night at Fairmount Park aboard two scrappy 4-year-olds, Sankofa Two and Backside Bully, who paid $10.20 and $23.20, respectively.

Torbit's double came on the heels of a Thursday night victory aboard Doubledigitdomedog, a spirited $4,000 claiming horse.

"That horse has a sense of humor to go with his name," said Torbit, 25, who has ridden for two years, has 31 career wins, and is 14 victories away from shedding her apprentice allowance. "He's cocky. He thinks he's a stakes horse."

MUSKEGON, Mich. - Freddie Mata is the leading rider at Great Lakes Downs - for now. Mata, who won the riding title here in 2000, holds a 49-43 lead over past champion Terry Houghton, despite missing the past week because of a training accident.

Mata was injured on June 15, when a 2-year-old flipped with him in the starting gate. He underwent surgery in Muskegon to have a pin inserted in his broken ankle. Agent Frank Garoufalis said the prognosis is good and that Mata is expected to ride again in about four weeks.

LINCOLN, Neb. - Gun Runner showed he still enjoys a route of ground last Sunday when he won the 1 3/8-mile leg of the Budweiser Marathon Starter Series.

Trained by Danny Smith and ridden by Dennis Collins, Gun Runner, 7, had just one previous start this year, a dismal last-place finish versus $4,000 claimers at a mile. But he rebounded strongly last Sunday, stalking the pace, and then kicking in through the stretch to score by a neck over the late-charging My Dad's Bad. Pacesetter Dark Magic led to the final sixteenth then settled for third, a nose farther back.

Rollin Me Out improved his undefeated turf record to two with an easy 2 1/4-length win in Tuesday's featured $15,500 allowance for older horses at five furlongs. Despite the fact he was one of only two horses in the field with a prior victory on the turf, and the only one of the two with positive recent form, Rollin Me Out started as the second choice and paid $7. The final time was 56.60 seconds, two-fifths of a second off the course record.

Undefeated Be a Bono and his trainer, Dan Francisco, are both taking vacations after teaming up to win the Grade 1, $159,250 Spencer Childers California Breeders Championship, a race named after Be a Bono's owner, last Saturday night at Los Alamitos.

Be a Bono is resting at his owner's ranch near Fresno and Francisco took a few days away from the barn and went to Hawaii.

Two-time champion AB What a Runner will be an overwhelming odds-on favorite Sunday to win the Grade 2, $76,590 MBNA America Northwest Challenge for older runners over 440 yards at Les Bois Park in Boise, Idaho, the track where she began her career two years ago.

The winner of the MBNA America Northwest Challenge receives a berth in the Grade 1, $300,000 MBNA America Challenge Championship on Nov. 6 at Lone Star Park.

MIAMI - Aeneas was one of the most talented and richest horses not to win a race in 2003. A son of Capote, Aeneas earned $336,000 despite going winless in nine starts last season, padding his bankroll by placing in four Grade 2 races as well as the Grade 3 Iselin Breeders' Cup.

Now trainer Marty Wolfson needs to get Aeneas back on the winning track. His quest begins here Friday in a $36,000 optional claiming race that looks like a good place for Aeneas to get his first win since Dec. 31, 2002.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The Queen's Plate, which will be run for the 145th time here Sunday afternoon, obviously is a race steeped in history.

But trainer Vito Armata will just be hoping that recent history repeats itself in this year's $1 million Queen's Plate when he saddles Archer Fleet for owners John Armata and Giuseppe Mazarese in the 1 1/4-mile fixture for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.

Armata sent out T J's Lucky Moon to take the 2002 Plate at 82-1, and while Archer Fleet's odds won't reach those heights he is unlikely to be less than 40-1.