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.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - When trainer Art Sherman dropped a claim on a 2-year-old filly named Snowbound Nan last Wednesday, he didn't know that he would get what he calls a "miracle horse" for $12,500.

Snowbound Nan fell during the running of her race and got lodged under the inner safety rail. An injection was prepared to euthanize her, but after track vet Dr. Robert Connolly was able to extricate her from under the rail, she not only got back on her feet but also walked back to her new home in Sherman's barn.

CHICAGO - Just three months separate Neon Shadow from his 10th birthday. His body is willing. His heart is strong. And man, his head is in the game.

"The racetrack is everything to him," Neon Shadow's trainer, Carl Bowman said. "He enjoys every minute of it. When he hears the bugle blowing, he'll run up to the webbing in his stall and prick his ears. He'll do it nine times a day, like clockwork."

SELMA, Texas - The late trainer Willard Proctor would have been proud. His wife, Margaret, 84, and all five of his children turned out for his induction into the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame on Saturday night at Retama Park.

Proctor was one of six enshrined in the Hall's fifth class. A native of Texas, he trained horses for 60 years, from 1938 until his death in 1998.

Among the 58 stakes winners Proctor saddled were Convenience, Gallant Romeo, and Lovlier Linda.

ANDERSON, Ind. - California shipper Excessivepleasure turned back a bid from Wando and then held off the previously undefeated Grand Hombre to earn a one-length win in Saturday night's Grade 3, $411,800 at Hoosier Park.