After missing the month of March while recovering from minor leg surgery 50-year-old jockey Rick Wilson was back in the saddle for opening day at Pimlico earlier this week. The best possible welcome back present Wilson could receive would be a stakes victory as he begins his stretch run toward the career milestone of 5,000 wins.

Riding for Philadelphia Park-based trainer John Servis, Wilson has a good shot to inch closer to his goal aboard Balmy in Saturday's $50,000 Primonetta, a six-furlong stakes for fillies and mares at Pimlico.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - It's odd that a former Horse of the Year and winner of the last two runnings of the Apple Blossom Handicap comes into the Grade 1, $500,000 race with something to prove. But that is the case for Azeri, who enters Saturday's Apple Blossom off a loss and the longest layoff of her career. She also will be making her first start for new trainer D. Wayne Lukas, and will give weight to a star-studded group of fillies and mares that includes Island Fashion and Wild Spirit.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - They might not be able to look away. The racing at Keeneland this spring will be so compelling that horseplayers throughout North America should find themselves transfixed by their simulcast sets, so deep and inspiring is the quality that lay ahead.

A 15-day meet begins Friday with 10 races, foremost among them the $100,000 Transylvania Stakes. Whereas many of the continent's top jockeys and trainers will be prominent throughout the opening-day program, the names of most of the horses will not be quite so familiar.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - This was supposed to be a happy homecoming for a self-proclaimed adopted son of Kentucky. Not only is Nick Zito a returning champion trainer at Keeneland, having easily topped the standings last fall, but also on a more relevant note, he was supposed to return to the Blue Grass this spring with more Kentucky Derby momentum than anybody else.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - John T. Ward Jr. laid conspicuously low in south Florida this winter, preferring to save his bullets for the Keeneland spring meet.

Steve Asmussen launched attack after successful attack in New Orleans this winter, but his far-flung empire never seems to run out of ammunition.

Regardless of their differing strategies of wait-and-pounce and never-let-up, both trainers figure to have a good time at Keeneland this month.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - A better effort from Snake Mountain in his comeback race last month would have earned him a spot in Saturday's Grade 3, $200,000 Excelsior Breeders' Cup Handicap. But Snake Mountain didn't run well enough to suit trainer Jimmy Jerkens so he was entered in a Friday allowance race at Aqueduct.

, a multiple stakes winner, is among nine older males entered in the $54,000 classified allowance race. The mile race drew a strong field, including graded stakes winners Peeping Tom, Multiple Choice, and Classic Endeavor.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - There was no parade, just plenty of rain when Funny Cide returned to his native New York on Wednesday afternoon. Funny Cide, last year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, arrived at Belmont Park from south Florida at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in advance of his start in Saturday's Grade 3, $200,000 Excelsior Breeders' Cup Handicap at Aqueduct.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Johar, the dead-heat winner of the Breeders' Cup Turf last October, has been retired after suffering a suspensory injury in mid-March.

Johar will be sent to stud, but plans have not been finalized, according to Richard Mulhall, racing manager for Johar's owner, The Thoroughbred Corp.

A finalist for the Eclipse Award as the outstanding turf male of 2003, Johar, 5, ended his racing career with six wins in 16 starts and earnings of $1,494,496.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Natural Style ran for a $14,000 purse when he scored a half-length win against state-bred $10,000 claimers at Santa Anita on March 19.

The win came against the lowest level of competition at Santa Anita, but that did not bother trainer Jack Carava. He had lost Natural Style in a $12,500 claiming race on Feb. 16 and took him back for the lower price on March 19.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland and the state's budget secretary, James C. DiPaula Jr., told the state House Ways and Means committee Tuesday that they were willing to consider state ownership of slot-machine parlors, a plan that would eliminate the state's racetracks from sharing in slots revenue.

Ehrlich repeatedly told the committee that he would bend on anything but significant tax increases, promising deep cuts in everything but public schools if the House rejects expanded gambling.