ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Chicken one day, feathers the next. There's an antiquated backstretch saying for nearly every occasion, and this one illustrates the weekend the Wayne Catalano stable just had at Arlington.

Last Friday, Catalano and his sole owner, Frank Calabrese, won the first race of this meet with their only starter of the day, and Saturday they could do no wrong. Catalano and Calabrese had horses in four races and won three of them, with only Fight for Ally falling short in the Black Tie Affair Handicap.

BALTIMORE - Pimlico Race Course is offering a dramatically expanded wagering menu Friday and Saturday for Preakness weekend, unveiling a dozen head-to-head match-ups and four guaranteed pick four bets that all feature reduced takeouts Friday and Saturday.

The head-to-head bets, which will be offered for the first time this year, will have a takeout of 11 percent, well below the win, place, and show takeout of 18 percent. The pick four bets will have a takeout of 14 percent. Superexotic wagers such as the pick three or trifecta at Pimlico have a takeout of 25.75 percent.

Trebizond, Naughty Prince, and Fighting Star - the first three finishers in the Hard Scuffle Stakes for steeplechase runners at Churchill Downs on May 1 - meet again on Friday at Pimlico in the Joe Aitcheson Stakes, the second leg of a three-race series for horses who had not won over the hurdles prior to March 2002.

In the Hard Scuffle, Trebizond beat Naughty Prince by a half-length, with Fighting Star another three-quarters of a length back in third. Friday's race is at 2 1/8 miles, a sixteenth of a mile farther than the Hard Scuffle.

Forest Heiress won the Sorority Stakes at 2, has faced the best female sprinters on dirt throughout her career, and comes off a runaway victory in a classified allowance race at Keeneland on April 18. That makes her the most accomplished runner in the $75,000 The Very One Stakes at Pimlico.

Summer Colony may have been over the top by the time she reached the Breeders' Cup Distaff last October. Sixteen races in 18 months had to take its toll at some point.

In order to have a fresher mare for the fall of 2003, trainer Mark Hennig has purposely waited to start Summer Colony's 5-year-old campaign, which gets under way Friday in the Grade 3, $150,000 Pimlico Breeders' Cup Distaff Handicap.

Fourteen Ohio-bred 3-year-old fillies were entered for the first stakes of the River Downs meet, Saturday's $50,000 Tomboy at 1 1/16 miles on the turf. Considering few of the entrants have turf experience, the field's composition is unlikely to change dramatically if rain, which is forecast for Saturday, forces the race to the main track.

The mare with the most consistent record racing at Mountaineer Park proved to be better than any of the out-of-towners in Tuesday night's $78,000 Hancock County Handicap.

Alison's Winner, sent off at 7-1 despite her record of two wins and a second in four previous starts at Mountaineer, held off Chicago invader High Humidity by a neck in the five-furlong Hancock, the meet's first stakes for fillies and mares.

LINCOLN, Neb. - Jockey Megan Ludlow, who arrived toward the end of the Fonner Park meet, made her first winner at the Lincoln State Fair a memorable one when Megans Molly ($51.60) rallied to win last Sunday's $10,000 Princess Stakes for trainer Paul Linafelter. Ludlow's 15-month old son, Ian, was at the track for mom's big win on Mother's Day.

MUSKEGON, Mich. - Felipe Santos moved from ninth to fourth in the Great Lakes Downs standings when he booted home five winners Tuesday evening. He doubled his win total to 10, eight behind leader Mary Doser.

Santos won the second aboard Mongol Sky ($14.20) for trainer Mark Romero, who saddled a pair of winners on the card. After missing the third, Santos won three races in a row with Tambourine Dancer ($22.60), Cirilo ($25.80), and Fool's Last Word ($18.60).

COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - In the fall of 1999, trainer Ron Brandenburg claimed Tic N Tin for $25,000 at Hawthorne in partnership with the late Bob Austin. It proved to be a once-in-a-lifetime move.

Since that time Tic N Tin has earned more than $570,000, won numerous stakes both at Fairmount Park and on the Chicago circuit, and was named Fairmount's horse of the meet in 2000 and 2001. But at 8 years old, Tic N Tin is winless in three starts this year and a younger rival is looking to knock him off his perch.