NEW ORLEANS - Leo's Last Hurrahy hasn't even raced as a 3-year-old, and already he has had a great career. A Texas-bred with a modest pedigree, Leo's Last Hurrahy won five races and more than $326,000 last year at age 2. His connections are hoping for more of the same when Leo's Last Hurrahy begins his 3-year-old campaign Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds.

The Lecomte serves as Leo's Last Hurrahy's prep for the $750,000 Louisiana Derby on March 9, but, said trainer Bob Young, "we're coming down there to win the race."

PORTLAND, Ore. - An evenly matched band of 10 older Oregon-bred fillies and mares will seek their second career wins in Friday's Portland Meadows feature, a 5 1/2-furlong allowance race with a purse of $4,620.

ARCADIA, Calif. - In a perfect scenario, trainer Ron Ellis would take it easy with Atswhatimtalknbout. A deliberate campaign would be planned, similar to Tiznow's in his 2000 drive to Horse of the Year.

Nevertheless, the Kentucky Derby chase is rarely perfect. That is why Ellis and owner B. Wayne Hughes will press on with Atswhatimtalknbout, an A.P. Indy colt who goes long and meets winners Friday at Santa Anita, just three weeks after an electrifying sprint debut.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - A horse who has won two stakes races figures to be the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in a four-other-than allowance race. Trouble is, Political Attack, while a multiple stakes winner, has not won a race in more than a year, and even though he figures as one of the top contenders in the Friday feature at Gulfstream Park, he will have to prove he still knows what it's like to win.

NEW ORLEANS - Achnasheen won her return race in her last start. On Friday at Fair Grounds she must beat a field filled with comeback horses.

Achnasheen faces seven opponents in Friday's ninth race, a first-level allowance for 3-year-old fillies at about 5 1/2 furlongs on turf. The low-level feature is bolstered by the seventh race, a 3-year-old maiden sprint filled with live prospects.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Trainer Bob Baffert said Wednesday his leading 3-year-old filly Composure will have a new rider when she makes her first start of the season Feb. 9 in the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita. The question is, who? Mike Smith was Composure's regular rider the latter part of 2002 when she won the Oak Leaf Stakes, then finished second in both the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and Hollywood Starlet. Baffert declined to say who would ride Composure in the Las Virgenes. "I'll know this weekend," he said.

ALBANY, Calif. - If he had his way, veteran trainer Bill Morey Jr. would be running Winning Stripes on the turf instead of on the main track in Friday's Golden Gate Fields feature race.

Winning Stripes won his maiden in a spirited stretch duel with Direct Male in a one-mile turf race here on Nov. 28.

"I've been waiting to run on the turf," said Morey. "They've had a race listed on the turf, but they couldn't get it to go, and that's surprising because turf races usually fill pretty well here."

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - When Canadian-based trainer Malcolm Pierce arrived for this meet, running Strizzi in Sunday's $100,000 Dave Feldman Stakes was probably the furthest thing from his mind.

But after Strizzi stormed from last nearing the stretch to blow away first-level allowance rivals in his turf debut on Jan. 8, Pierce's future plans and expectations for the colt suddenly changed.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Kathleen O'Connell sounded a little stressed. Not about the prospects of running her 3-year-old filly Ivanavinalot at Santa Anita on Saturday in the Sunshine Million Oaks. But at the thought of making the six-hour plane ride from Fort Lauderdale to California on Wednesday afternoon.

O'Connell sounded supremely confident that Ivanavinalot would give a good account of herself in the seven-furlong Oaks when she was asked about the race not long before she boarded her flight for the West Coast.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Not that they mind, considering the upside to what they might win, but trainers who have sent their horses from California to Florida for the Sunshine Millions concede they rather would have been doing the same thing at home.

"You have to ship all the way across the country, and you have to run over a new track," said Ian Jory, who on Saturday will saddle Continental Red as one of the major contenders in the Sunshine Millions featured event, the $1 million Classic. "But if you get a big piece of it, then obviously it's been worth the risk."