CALGARY, Alberta - Executive Time heads a field of six 3-year-old fillies competing for a $17,000 purse in a six-furlong conditioned allowance here Wednesday evening.

Executive Time, a stakes-placed daughter of Bold Executive, drew the rail with jockey Real Simard retaining the mount. Trained by Floyd Arthur, she makes her third start of the year.

Executive Time was second last year to Alberta's 2-year-old filly champion Classa Red Wine in the Filly Sale Stakes and third in the restricted Sturgeon River. She was off the board only once in six starts.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Two starters are better than one, and doesn't Bob Baffert know it. Baffert will run Class Above and Victory U. .S. A. in the 130th Kentucky Oaks on Friday at Churchill Downs, and while Victory U. S. A. will be among the core group of favorites for the Grade 1 race, Baffert also was excited about the way that Class Above, a likely longshot, tuned up for the race by working a half-mile here Monday in 47.40 seconds.

"She worked awesome," said Baffert.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks day allowance races are often much better than races scheduled on typical racing days at Churchill Downs. Now it seems that trend is extending to some races earlier in Derby Week.

Wednesday's featured ninth race, a $55,500 optional claiming race at six furlongs, drew 12 runners, including several who have run well in stakes. All but two of the starters, , are running under three-other-than allowance conditions.

Notable entrants include , Flying Free, Twin Talk, and Stephentown.

Spurred in large part by high-class racing and exceptional weather, records for attendance and handle were broken at the 15-day spring meet that ended Friday at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.

The 2004 Gulfstream Park meeting ended Sunday, with the 91-day session showing gains in both ontrack attendance and handle but a decrease in all-sources handle in comparison to the previous year.

Attendance for the 2004 meet totaled 780,235, an increase of 2.7 percent from 2003. Ontrack handle of $152 million exceeded the 2003 figure by 3.5 percent. All-sources handle of $778 million was down 5.7 percent from last season. The Gulfstream signal was not available at many account wagering services for the first time this year.

Delaware Park has reached a settlement with Thoroughbred owner Michael Gill over an anti-trust lawsuit he filed against the track, according to newspaper reports.

The settlement allows Gill to race at the track but does not award him stalls, according to the reports. This weekend at Delaware, Gill ran four horses on Saturday and two horses on Sunday. Two won.

Delaware officials did not return phone calls on Monday.

Move to Strike ($4.20) will be moving on to face tougher competition after scoring a wire-to-wire victory in the $75,000 Star de Naskra Stakes, a six-furlong race for Maryland-bred 3-year-olds. He led by three lengths with a furlong remaining and was all out to hold off Known Back Home by a half-length.

Trainer Jerry Robb said Move to Strike, who has won both his starts this year, will be pointed to the Hirsch Jacobs Stakes on the Preakness undercard.

The win was the 15th of the meet and 81st of the year in Maryland for Michael Gill, the nation's leading owner.

Feline Story, a graded stakes winner as a 2-year-old last summer, returned from a long layoff to score a two-length victory in the $75,000 Legal Light Stakes, Delaware Park's opening day feature, before an estimated crowd of 16,000.

Racing for the first time since finishing second in the Grade 2 Astarita in New York last October, Feline Story ($3) made a three-wide move to take the lead approaching the quarter pole in the six-furlong race and drew off. Trained by Stan Hough, Feline Cat has won 4 of 7 lifetime starts, including the Grade 3 Sorority at Monmouth Park.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Balestrini was a cut below the best 3-year-olds in Europe last year. This year, he could be a factor in the top turf stakes for older horses in this country.

Balestrini's season begins Wednesday in a $50,000 allowance race at Hollywood Park.

Trained by Neil Drysdale, has been in the U.S. since last summer, but was given the winter off by design, Drysdale said.

"Mentally, we didn't think he was ready," Drysdale said.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Patrick Valenzuela's tumultuous year continued when he rode two winners from five mounts at Hollywood Park on Sunday, his first day of riding since being suspended for missing a mandatory drug test in January.