CHICAGO - In September, the Arlington racetrack was nearly deserted each day during the last half-hour of morning training. An inordinate number of exercising horses seemed to be wearing saddle towels initialed "MR." And perched on his pony in front of the winner's circle, cell phone in hand, following his sets of horses as they came down the stretch, was MR himself, Mike Reavis.

CHICAGO - Backstage, following stakes races at Arlington, Dick Duchossois or a substitute executive leads the winning connections in a champagne toast. That was fine, but after Tenpins won the Washington Park Handicap at Arlington last fall, Don Winfree was holding a cold beer.

There are few frills to Winfree, a grizzled veteran trainer of the Kentucky circuit. And that applies to his assessment of Tenpins's 2003 campaign.

"We'll know how his year has gone after Sunday," Winfree said, reached by phone this week.

CHICAGO - The leaves have started turning, the nights have gotten chilly, and horse trailers have been rumbling down the expressway from Arlington Heights to Stickney the last two weeks. Chicago racing moves from Arlington Park to Hawthorne Race Course on Sunday, but there is no easing into a fall-winter meet that runs through Jan. 3, 2004. The opening-day program features the Grade 2 Hawthorne Gold Cup, with a purse bumped from $500,000 to $750,000 and a six-horse field that boils down to a marquee match race between Perfect Drift and Tenpins.

It's not every day that a $40,000 stakes serves as a springboard to the Breeders' Cup, but that will be the case for Wacky Patty on Sunday when she starts in the Delta Miss at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La. The six-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies will be her last stop before the $1 million Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita on Oct. 25.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It is the antithesis of what long has been derisively known as the Turfway conveyor belt. A reverse bias that has seen a majority of winners racing well removed from the inner rail has been in place for most of the fall meet at Turfway Park. Track president Bob Elliston insists he and his staff have been keenly aware of its existence and are attempting to neutralize its effects.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Josie Carroll probably saw more than enough of San Diego Blowout here last Sunday when he hooked up with her entrant, Estevan, in the seven-furlong Swynford Stakes.

Those two front-runners, competing over a track that was rated fast but playing slow, managed to take the starch out of each other early and faltered late, with Estevan ending up third and San Diego Blowout last in the field of five.

FORT ERIE, Ontario - Two popular 12-year-old runners at Fort Erie have shown they are not yet ready to be put out to pasture. There is even the likelihood they will return to race next year.

Pagagar, a winner of nine races and $378,527, and Roche Rock, a 12-time winner who has earned $381,615, are thriving. Both have won at the meet.

The connections of both have made it known that the runners are healthy and most happy when they are in the racing environment. They love to train and compete.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba - K-5 Stable's 6-year-old Sir Pucker and 3-year-old Northern Affair each look formidable in the $60,000 Breeders' Gold Cup here on the final day of the meet Sunday.

Sir Pucker and Northern Affair will race as separate betting interests, and they will face five others in the 1 1/8-mile meet championship race for older horses.

Northern Affair has natural speed and will be in front early. He's already proven he can carry it the distance of Sunday's race. When under pressure against older horses, he won the Harry Jeffrey here Aug. 24.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Owner-breeder Wally Leong of Canyon Farms accomplished a rare feat with back-to-back wins in the Jack Diamond Futurity. Last year he won it with Illusive Force. This year his Lord Samarai overcame a rough beginning to beat Proud Son by a half-length. He bred both horses and they're both by the same impeccably bred stallion Yoonevano, whom Leong owns a portion of.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Even with a horse as talented as Mineshaft, trainer Neil Howard can't alter his nervous-Nellie ways. On Wednesday night, sitting in his New York hotel room, Howard picked up the phone to call jockey Robby Albarado and discuss the potential pitfalls facing his top handicap horse in Saturday's $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.