GROVE CITY, Ohio - Beulah Park has struggled at the entry box over the past month, but the $40,000 Edward Babst Memorial Handicap drew a full field of 14 Ohio-bred colts and geldings, including the defending champion, Disappearance.

LAFAYETTE, La. - Unbeaten and untested Copper Ripple runs in a stakes for the first time in the $35,000 Inaugural Handicap at Evangeline Downs.

The six-furlong race drew a field of seven 3-year-olds, including Mike 'n Doc, a stakes veteran and the highweight.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - Three weeks ago in the 6 1/2-furlong Baxter Stakes, Hootiehoot, Intervene, and Tricky Alex were about as evenly matched as it gets.

The three will go at it again in a field of 10 in the $25,000-added colts and geldings division of the Fonner Park Special Stakes. For 3-year-old Nebraska-breds, the race is at six furlongs.

The trio were three abreast turning into the stretch and finished within three-quarters of a length of each other in the Baxter, finishing second, third, and fourth.

PORTLAND, Ore. - French Season and Neil's Advice, the fifth and sixth finishers in last month's one-mile Preview Handicap, drop to the $8,000 claiming level to head a field of six 3-year-olds in Saturday's 5 1/2-furlong feature at Portland Meadows.

French Season figures to be a solid favorite, as he has twice won at 5 1/2 furlongs during this meeting, and he prepped for the Preview with a second in a six-furlong allowance race on March 9. He was beaten just a half-length by the then-undefeated I Won't Apollogize.

As a 3-year-old last season, Vesta was good enough to win two sprint stakes races at Pimlico, including the Grade 3 Miss Preakness in May, in which she earned a career-best 99 Beyer Speed Figure.

Less than two months later, however, Vesta's season was cut short when she was found to have knee chips following her fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Prioress in New York.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - In turf stakes for young horses, the fields typically comprise turf performers with limited stakes experience or stakes performers with limited turf experience. The field for the $100,000 Grand Prairie Turf Challenge, at one mile Saturday at Lone Star Park, illustrates that.

The major contenders all competed at Fair Grounds over the winter, where turf allowance races were frequently run. Marsh, Gentlemen J J, and Lone Star Deputy, all winners during the Fair Grounds meet, make their turf stakes debut in the Grand Prairie.

PHOENIX - You can make a case for most of the eight 3-year-olds in Saturday's $23,000 Chuck N Luck Stakes at Turf Paradise, but the mile distance might favor Hero's Pleasure.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Trainer Art Sherman knows what to expect from Lindsay Jean in Saturday's $75,000-added Miss America Handicap on the turf at Bay Meadows.

"She's got all the talent in the world," said Sherman, who has turned the 5-year-old mare from a flighty, poor sprinter into a graded stakes winner. "She's coming into the race good, and she always lays her body down."

Trainer Jerry Fanning doesn't know what to expect from La Duncan, a 4-year-old Argentine-bred filly who will make her U.S. debut in the 1 1/16-mile race.

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. - The final weekend of the Sunland Park meet gets under way Saturday with two $100,000-added races which could be billed as "Steve Asmussen vs. the California invaders."

The 1 1/8-mile Sunland Park Handicap has drawn a field of eight, including Truly a Judge, the morning-line favorite. Second in the Tokyo City Handicap at Santa Anita most recently for trainer David Bernstein, Truly a Judge will shoulder co-highweight of 120 pounds. Octavio Vergara will be in for the mount.

CALGARY, Alberta - Derby Duke is a hard-luck kind of horse who has developed a case of "seconditis." A 6-year-old gelding by Salt Lake, Derby Duke has started 29 times. He has three victories and has 13 second-place finishes, and is just a few noses and necks shy of tripling his win total.

Derby Duke is stakes placed and has kept good company, and may find a cure for his malady in Saturday's featured eighth race for $28,000 claimers at Stampede Park. The four-furlong race has a purse of $18,300.