ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The pieces finally appear to be coming together for Arco's Gold, who runs in Monday's $150,000 Ontario Derby.

The Ontario Derby, a Grade 3 race for 3-year-olds, goes at 1 1/8 miles, the distance at which Arco's Gold became a stakes winner here in last fall's Coronation Futurity.

Making just his third start there, Arco's Gold actually dead-heated with Mobil for the top prize in the Coronation, but was awarded sole possession via a disqualification.

ELMONT, N.Y. - The connections of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide are "leaning" toward bringing their gelding back to the races in the Grade 3, $100,000 Discovery Handicap at Aqueduct on Oct. 29.

Funny Cide has not raced since finishing third in the Aug. 3 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park. An illness forced him to miss the Travers 20 days later. Since returning to training one month ago, things have gone relatively smoothly for Funny Cide with the exception of one poor turf workout on Sept. 24.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - It was at the Breeders' Cup last year that trainer Donnie Von Hemel began thinking . . . well, Breeders' Cup, for the star of his barn, Bien Nicole.

"I felt like, last fall, when she won that stake the day before, that if she could get to that level, it'd be something we'd look into," recalled Von Hemel, referring to the Estrapade Handicap the afternoon before the BC at Arlington Park.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - In the spring at Keeneland, every program includes at least one stakes. In the fall, there are 19 stakes scattered over 17 days, but because some are grouped together on the same day, three fall programs are stakes-less.

Wednesday is one of those, but not to worry. Four straight allowance races, worth a Keeneland-esque total of $214,000, should provide sufficient high-end racing entertainment for an afternoon. The allowances have been saved as the proverbial best-for-last by being carded as the sixth through ninth on a nine-race program.

Voters in Orleans Parish, La., passed a referendum Saturday allowing Fair Grounds to open a slot machine parlor. The measure was supported by 58 percent of the vote.

At the earliest, the slots would open in fall of 2004. The referendum will have no direct effect on the upcoming Fair Grounds season. Although the number of machines Fair Grounds can operate is far fewer than other tracks in the state, the measure's passage breathes life into a struggling operation.

Fair Grounds still faces a licensing investigation by the Louisiana State Police.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Julie Krone's five-win day at Santa Anita on Saturday was nearly a year in the making.

Krone won the $150,000 Oak Tree Derby aboard Devious Boy, maiden races with Annabelly, Eyad, and Rosberg, and a claiming race with Carla Rose.

While the Oak Tree Derby was the most lucrative victory, the maiden win aboard Annabelly was as meaningful, she said. Krone began exercising Annabelly for trainer Jenine Sahadi last fall when she returned to riding from a retirement of 3 1/2 years.

Laurel Park, which opens its fall meet Wednesday, will play host to the 18th annual Maryland Million this weekend, a series of 11 races based on a format similar to the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships.

More than 160 offspring of Maryland-based stallions have been pre-entered in Saturday's Maryland Million races. The post position draw is scheduled for Wednesday. The fall meet will run through Dec. 31.

ARCADIA, Calif. - A pick-six carryover of $159,466 is one of the attractions on Wednesday's eight-race program at Santa Anita.

The carryover, the first of the Oak Tree meeting, resulted from a string of upsets in major stakes Sunday and comes on the seventh day of the meeting.

The pick six covers the third through eighth races and includes three races for maiden claimers, two turf races, and a $10,000 claimer for fillies and mares.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Kent Ridge figures to be a solid contender in Wednesday's $129,250 Frost King Stakes, a seven-furlong dash at Woodbine for Ontario-sired 2-year-olds.

Kent Ridge, who is from the first crop of 1998 Queen's Plate winner Archers Bay, graduated his second-time out in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden special on July 5 and finished second in the Bull Page Stakes. He has been absent since running fourth in an Aug. 17 allowance on the grass.

EDMONTON, Alberta - After Code Name Fred missed the entire 2002 season, many believed that he would never make it back to the stakes level in Alberta, if at all.

In his first start in 2003, Code Name Fred was obviously rusty and finished more than nine lengths back. He was only marginally better in his next trip, finishing well back in another optional claiming/allowance race.

But when stretched out to a mile for his final start at the Stampede meeting, Code Name Fred was a winner at the same level.