INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Lion Heart is on the fast track. He was a fast winner of his debut last month at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meeting, and he is fast becoming one of the leading prospects for next month's Hollywood Futurity.

The stepping-stone between the maiden win and the Grade 1 Futurity is Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 Hollywood Prevue. The seven-furlong race will test Lion Heart's raw ability, and lack of experience, against the more experienced but less brilliant likes of Consecrate and Cooperation.

HOUSTON - Questions concerning either distance or surface surround each of the top contenders in Saturday night's $150,000 Sam Houston Texas Juvenile, making the 1 1/16-mile stakes one of the most attractive betting races on the $550,000 Texas Champions Day card.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Houston Shuffle and Tom Won will square off for the second time in Saturday's $13,950 Bill Wineberg Stakes, which has attracted a field of 11 Oregon-bred juveniles.

Houston Shuffle was a seven-length winner over Tom Won when both made their debuts here in a five-furlong maiden special weight race on opening day, Oct. 18, but Tom Won broke slowly and raced wide that day.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - In her last start, Vegas Folly easily won a race for 3-year-old fillies that hadn't won a stakes of $20,000 in 2003. She gets to run back at the same condition Saturday, only this time she will face older fillies and mares, including multiple stakes winner Catahoula Rose. The 1 1/16-mile feature drew nine horses and goes as the fifth race.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Saturday's Grade 2 Long Island Handicap at Aqueduct ought to be renamed for a different location. Eight of the fillies and mares in the 12-horse field aren't even from the United States, let alone New York's Long Island.

HOUSTON - Trainer Jack Bruner has seen a different side of Most Feared since the horse arrived at Sam Houston Race Park to prepare for Saturday night's $100,000 Star of Texas Stakes.

The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-olds and up is one of eight stakes on the annual Texas Champions Day program, worth a cumulative $550,000. All of the races except the $150,000 Sam Houston Texan Juvenile are restricted to Texas-breds.

Earlier this week, trainer Doug O'Neill said he would like to see Excessivepleasure draw outside of the other speed horses in the Grade 3, $150,000 Oklahoma Derby. He got his wish on Thursday when Excessivepleasure landed post 3 in the six-horse field, right outside of his main pace rival, Kool Humor.

The Oklahoma Derby, a 1 1/8-mile race to be run at Remington Park on Sunday, is the richest stakes of the meet. Excessivepleasure was made the 6-5 morning-line favorite, followed by 5-2 second choice Kool Humor.

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has expressed support for a slot-machine plan that limits gambling licenses to one per company, making a concession on Wednesday that could create problems for Pimlico Race Course.

Acknowledging criticism that his original slots-at-racetracks proposal would have enriched a few wealthy track owners, the governor said he could accept a condition established by House Speaker Michael E. Busch - that one company be prevented from receiving multiple licenses.

In a standoff that took a new twist on Thursday, Churchill Downs Simulcast Network withheld all of its signals, including Churchill Downs, Hollywood Park, Calder Race Course, and Hoosier Park, from the more than one dozen tracks that make up the Southern Racing Cooperative.

The Churchill network and the cooperative have been in talks regarding simulcast rates since at least Tuesday, Hollywood's opening day, when the cooperative tracks chose not to import the Hollywood program. The parties were still in discussions on Thursday, even after the signals were withdrawn by Churchill.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The decision by Hollywood Park to shorten the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes to one mile beginning this year was met with mixed reviews, but it may help to land a prize catch in Adoration, the upset winner of last month's Breeders' Cup Distaff.