INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The Grade 3 Inglewood Handicap on Saturday at Hollywood Park, might be called a prep for the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile on May 26. But it is not. In the seven years since purse increases made the $350,000 Shoemaker the meet's premier turf race, only one Inglewood winner (Fastness in 1996) also won the Shoemaker.

Racing fans wondering where owner Michael Gill and trainer Mark Shuman might resurface need only look at the entries for Saturday's card at Mountaineer Park.

The highly successful but controversial team of Gill and Shuman have entered four horses, including an entry for Mountaineer's first stakes of the season, the $75,000 Panhandle Handicap.

Boston Brat, who set one track record and tied another at Gulfstream Park, and Native Heir, a Grade 3 stakes winner in south Florida, are Gill and Shuman's entry in the five-furlong Panhandle.

EAST BOSTON, Mass. - A training mishap earlier this week won't keep probable favorite Bruanna from running in Saturday's $35,000 Miss Indy Anna Stakes at Suffolk Downs.

The 5-year-old Bruanna heads a field of nine fillies and mares in the six-furlong Miss Indy Anna, but she nearly missed the opportunity following an impromptu tour of the Suffolk barn area Monday morning.

PHOENIX - In the last two months, Embassy Belle has faced some of the best female turf runners in Southern California: Final Destination, Heat Haze, and Garden in the Rain. Seeking an easier spot for her, trainer Ben Cecil has shipped Embassy Belle to Turf Paradise for the $35,000 Sun City Handicap.

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - The $50,000 Summit Silver Cup Handicap sets up the rubber match between the two top Ohio-bred 3-year-olds, Hackendiffy and Forest Picnic. They met twice last year, and each owns a decision going into the 1 1/16-mile race. In both races they carried equal weight, but on Saturday Forest Picnic carries 122 and Hackendiffy 120.

These days $50,000 stakes races don't often draw strong fields, but Saturday's 5 1/2-furlong Prairie Express at Prairie Meadows did.

Sand Ridge, the race's two-time defending champion, will take on the entry of Honor Me, Beverly Greedy, and Pie's Little Brother - all owned by Highway 1 Racing Stable and trained by Stanley Roberts - in the Express, formerly named the Bob Feller. Other contenders in the eight-horse field include Outathechute and Medium Rare.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - That Tat, who set a track record in a Lone Star allowance race in his last start, will move back into stakes company Saturday for the track's $75,000 Ford Express.

The race has been shortened in distance to six furlongs after previously being run at 6 1/2 furlongs. Other top contenders in the field include stakes winners Richest Half and Doctor Mike.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The outside post going five furlongs on the Churchill Downs turf course is typically death, trainer Tom Amoss believes. Thursday, it may have been key in getting Full Spectrum to the winner's circle in the $113,500 Mamzelle Stakes.

Amoss believes Full Spectrum did not like racing inside of horses in a couple of races this winter at Fair Grounds. Still, with two wins and two seconds, she showed enough quality to impress Amoss and jockey Calvin Borel.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Friday before the Kentucky Derby has become known as "Louisville's Day at the Races," but in reality, it's a day horseplayers everywhere can appreciate.

A race as competitive as the 129th Kentucky Oaks serves as Exhibit A in regard to why some 100,000 fans - not to mention hundreds of thousands more watching via simulcast or on ESPN2 - will be riveted on Friday's events at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Trainer Ken McPeek went to Doug Bredar, the Churchill Downs racing secretary, earlier this week and asked who he thought would be running in Friday's $300,000 Louisville Breeders' Cup Handicap.

"You and you," Bredar replied, referring to McPeek's two-time Grade 1 winner Take Charge Lady and the Bobby Frankel-trained You.

Bredar eventually put together a six-horse field for the 1 1/16-mile Louisville Breeders' Cup, but barring the unforeseen, the Grade 2 event is strictly a two-horse race.