AUBURN, Wash. - Rightbyu, who earned claimer of the meeting honors after winning five of eight starts at last year's Emerald Downs meeting, heads a field of seven older fillies and mares in Friday's five-furlong feature for $25,000 to $20,000 claimers.

CHICAGO - Wally Dollase is plundering the National Jockey Club at Hawthorne stakes schedule. Ten Most Wanted - 1-10 early in the wagering - busted open the National Jockey Club Handicap here last weekend. Saturday, it is supposed to be his stablemate Bare Necessities's turn. She was 3-5 when she won the Sixty Sails last season at Hawthorne Race Course, and a similarly short price looms in this year's edition.

Finding an opening entering the stretch, Meridiana shook clear of traffic and scored a nose victory over Alternate in the Grade 3, $113,400 Bewitch Stakes at Keeneland on Wednesday.

Meridiana was reserved off the pace in the 1 1/2-mile Bewitch. Jockey Edgar Prado placed Meridiana in third as Tempus Fugit set slow fractions over a yielding turf course.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - The field for Saturday's $100,000 Bosselman/Gus Fonner Stakes at Fonner Park began taking shape on Wednesday as the plans of several shippers were solidified.

One week after Lone Star Park hosts the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships, Sam Houston Race Park in Houston will host the MBNA Challenge Championships for Quarter Horses. The Challenge Championships could be likened to a Breeders' Cup for Quarter Horses, and the program will highlight the track's 95-date meet for Quarter Horses that opens Friday night. The Challenge Championships will close out the meet Nov. 6. A total of 13 stakes worth more than $1 million will make up the card. One of top events is the Grade 1, $300,000 MBNA Challenge Championship.

Starting Saturday, Philadelphia Park will begin selling Smarty Jones memorabilia in honor of the Philadelphia Park-based 3-year-old who heads into next weekend's Kentucky Derby unbeaten in six starts. Smarty Jones's owners, Patricia and Roy Chapman of Someday Farm, have requested that all proceeds from the sale be donated to the Backstretch Relief Fund.

Smarty Jones T-shirts and hats bear the colt's name, along with the "C" that is displayed on the Chapmans' racing silks. For an additional donation, Stewart Elliott, the regular rider of Smarty Jones, will autograph the items.

The familiar green and pink silks of Juddmonte Farms will make a rare appearance at River Downs in the seventh race Friday. Swaggering, a 3-year-old colt trained by Chris Speckert, raced competitively at Fair Grounds over the winter and is a stickout in the one-mile maiden event.

Juddmonte Farms was awarded the Eclipse Award as outstanding owner of 2003 and has won the Eclipse as outstanding breeder the last three years.

Redman Running, winner of last year's Remington Park Futurity, deserves to be favored in the Grade 1, $75,800 Remington Park Derby on a Saturday card that also includes the Grade 1, $169,216 Remington Park Futurity.

AUBURN, Wash. - The ninth Emerald Downs season began in much the same fashion as its predecessors. A potent speed bias dominated the action, and at least a couple of brilliant performances were turned in.

How tough was the speed? No fewer than 18 of the 26 winners over the first three days of racing led virtually every step of the way, including eight of the nine winners on Sunday.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The last time he brought Evening Attire to Kentucky, trainer Pat Kelly watched in glee, then dismay, as Evening Attire finished first in the Grade 2 Clark Handicap last November, only to be disqualified for bumping and hindering the eventual winner, Quest, down the Churchill Downs stretch.