INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The improving filly Cunning Play might have snuck into the $100,000 Hawthorne Handicap Friday at Hollywood Park, been part of a small field, and earned Grade 3 placing in only the third start of her comeback. Trainer Laura de Seroux admits she was tempted.

"I know the Hawthorne would be a small field, and we were back and forth between running there or a two-other-than," the trainer said. Ultimately, de Seroux entered Cunning Play in the two-other-than allowance race. Why? "Because it's the right thing to do to develop her," she said.

AUBURN, Wash. - An annual rite of spring will take place Thursday when Emerald Downs offers the state's first 2-year-old race of the year, a quarter-mile race that has drawn a field of nine, eight of them debut runners. It will be run as the second race on the card.

The race filled four days earlier than last meet's first 2-year-old race, yet it came none too soon for director of racing Grant Holcomb. Even with the nine-horse juvenile field, Holcomb was able to entice just 53 horses to enter Thursday's eight races, or an average of 6.6 horses per race.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - There are reasons to believe Oak Hall will run back to the 111 Beyer Speed Figure he earned two starts ago in Saturday's Texas Mile. Ten runners are expected for the Grade 3, $300,000 race.

Oak Hall has undergone minor throat surgery since he was beaten a head as the 3-5 favorite in the $150,000 Gulf Coast Handicap at Delta Downs March 2. The procedure could mean another big effort is in the making.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Even while he stayed in the barn Sunday, Prized Friend's stock went up. The 7-year-old Prized Friend will be entered in the $150,000 Khaled Stakes - part of Saturday's $1.3 million California Gold Rush for statebreds at Hollywood Park - and based on the company Prized Friend has been keeping, the Khaled is a turf race that he has a shot to win.

"Put it this way," trainer Bill Spawr said, "look who beat him."

ALBANY, Calif. - That was then.

"He has so much natural ability, as much as any horse I've ever had. He could be absolutely anything," trainer Brent Sumja said of Federal Highway before his nose victory in the James F. Lyttle Memorial Handicap at Santa Rosa last summer.

This is now.

Federal Highway is the probable favorite among eight runners in Thursday's feature at Bay Meadows, a one-mile turf race for $25,000 claimers.

AUBURN, Wash. - Bisbee's Prospect didn't just win Saturday's opening-day U.S. Bank Stakes at Emerald Downs. She utterly dominated the six furlong race for 3-year-old fillies, winning by nearly five lengths over pacesetter Tavy's Plan in 1:08.20. The clocking obliterated the stakes record of 1:08.80 set last year by Lasting Code, herself an exceptional filly.

It was the kind of performance that breeder and owner Jerre Paxton and trainer Bob McMeans were hoping for but scarcely dared to expect.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Battle-tested in two rich stakes at Sunland Park in March, Excessivepleasure returns to the comfort of home, and the company of fellow California-breds, in Saturday's $250,000 Snow Chief Stakes at Hollywood Park.

Trainer Doug O'Neill had considered passing the Snow Chief Stakes until he watched Excessivepleasure work six furlongs in 1:14 on Saturday. The finish of the workout convinced O'Neill that Excessivepleasure had emerged from his victory in the $500,000 WinStar Derby at Sunland Park on March 30 ready for another race.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Hollywood Park will continue its trend of grouping major stakes races into one-day festivals on weekends and holidays in an effort to build interest in the 65-day spring-summer meet, which begins Wednesday.

While the plan leaves some weekend programs with only modest feature races, track president Rick Baedeker is hoping the multi-stakes approach will appeal to a national audience of bettors.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - About the only sure thing Wednesday at Hollywood Park is that the 65-day spring-summer racing season begins with a 1:20 p.m. first post.

As the Southern California circuit relocates from Santa Anita to Hollywood Park, familiar uncertainties re-emerge. The Hollywood racing office will strain to fill races; horsemen will choose between stabling at Hollywood or training horses at Santa Anita and shipping crosstown to race; and horseplayers face such blurry variables as track surface and a fresh crop of unraced 2-year-olds. There are plenty of questions.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Some horses like Kentucky, and, well, some horses love it. Rochester seems to fit the second category, having won two of the richest races of his career last fall in the Bluegrass State.

Rochester won the $300,000 Kentucky Cup Turf at Kentucky Downs in September, then wheeled back in just two weeks to win the $100,000 Sycamore Stakes at Keeneland. For the first time since that nifty double, Rochester, a turf-marathon specialist, is back to run in Kentucky, this time as one of the likely favorites in Wednesday's $100,000 Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland.