ETOBICOKE, Ontario - No matter what happens in the final three weeks of the meeting, 2003 will have been a career year for trainer Scott Fairlie.

Heading into Saturday's card, Fairlie was second in the Woodbine standings with 56 victories, nine behind leader Bob Tiller.

Fairlie has also won 17 races at Fort Erie, where he maintains a division of six to eight horses. His combined total makes him Canada's leading trainer in races won, and his runners have collected almost $2.4 million. Both figures represent career bests.

FORT ERIE, Ontario - With the track's season coming to an end on Tuesday, there is still a little suspense as to will finish atop most of Fort Erie's statistical standings.

Not so with the jockey race. Martin Ramirez has undoubtedly captured the jockeys' crown. With 120 victories heading into Saturday, he was 36 ahead of the runner-up, Francine Villeneuve.

Storming on Merit, a winner of 8 of her 9 starts, all two-furlong dashes, is the Fort's winningest runner. Next in line is Ashagio, who has seven wins. Both runners may get a start in before the meet is over.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Nihilator figures to be a solid favorite in the Hastings feature Sunday, a 1 1/16-mile allowance race for 2-year-olds that have not won a stakes of $20,000 or more.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - By far, the filly with the longest resume in the $125,000 New York Stallion Series Fifth Avenue Stakes on Sunday is So Sweet a Cat, who has run five times and has three second-place finishes in three restricted stakes at Finger Lakes.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The $1.3 million California Cup - an annual fall celebration of California-breds - has landed squarely on the shoulders of a horse trainer. Doug O'Neill, who trains Cal Cup Classic favorite Sky Jack, recognizes that his bevy of riches has created a paradox Saturday at Santa Anita.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Doug O'Neill set a record for most victories by a trainer at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting on Wednesday when Long Gone Con gave him his 22nd victory since the meet began on Sept. 28.

O'Neill, 35, broke the record held by Bob Baffert, who won 21 races at the 1998 and 1999 meetings.

The Oak Tree meeting ends Sunday. O'Neill will finish the meeting as the leading trainer. Earlier this year, he won the training title at the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting.

ARCADIA, Calif. - In recent years, top California-breds have needed success on the national stage to earn the statebred horse of the year title.

Free House (1997-98), Budroyale (1999), and Tiznow (2000-01) won titles after winning or placing in the nation's most important races, including the Triple Crown or Breeders' Cup. Even the 2002 winner, Continental Red, helped his cause with a stakes win at Sam Houston Race Park last December.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The weather may be as big of a factor as pace or current form in Saturday's $150,000 California Cup Distaff at Santa Anita.

A threat of rain could lead to the transfer of the race from about 6 1/2 furlongs on turf to 6 1/2 furlongs on the main track.

Either way, there is no shortage of contenders in a field of 14.

On turf, Del Mar stakes winners Centerofattention and Roberta's Mango, the versatile Blind Ambition, and pacesetters Icantgoforthat and Grant Marty a Wish rank among the leading contenders.

ARCADIA, Calif. - When he won the inaugural California Cup Classic in 1990 with former claiming horse My Sonny Boy, trainer Bill Spawr established a Cal Cup precedent. In stakes restricted to statebreds, class frequently takes a backseat to current form.

The pattern is likely to recur in Saturday's $150,000 California Cup Sprint. Five of the eight runners in the stakes were purchased via the claim box, including the three sharpest in the field: Highly Tempting, Spawr-trained Summer Service, and Trapper.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be. She's better. At age 6, Cee's Elegance is racing in the best form of her career. She has been good enough to beat open company sprinting in the Grade 2 A Gleam Handicap at Hollywood Park this summer, and was second to Florida-bred Smok'n Frolic when going long in the Sunshine Millions Distaff at Santa Anita in January.