HOUSTON - Horatio Karamanos could wait no longer. Leaving the half-mile pole, Karamanos, riding La Reine's Terms, dared to go eyeball-to-eyeball alongside heavily favored Forbidden Apple in the $262,000 Great State Challenge Turf, something that normally would spell defeat for most horses.

NEW ORLEANS - Leslie's Love won her first stakes race, holding off Lady of Peace by a neck Saturday at Fair Grounds in the $60,000 Dr. A.B. Leggio Memorial Handicap.

A former claiming horse, Leslie's Love gave jockey Shane Sellers his first stakes win of a comeback that started in November, and longtime Fair Grounds trainer Connie Tassistro his first local stakes victory since 1996.

Leslie's Love was timed in 1:04.61 for 5 1/2 furlongs over firm turf, and paid $12.60 to win.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Snake Mountain got a perfect trip winning last month's Stuyvesant Handicap. Now make it two perfect trips in a row.

Snake Mountain, under Jose Santos, captured the Grade 3 Queens County Handicap on Saturday by 1 1/4 lengths, but he won more comfortably than that margin might suggest.

NEW ORLEANS - A mystique surrounds the buying and training of racehorses, where instincts and an eye for talent are prized.

But Soto's powerful rally that won the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes on Nov. 30 struck a blow for hard science. Long before Soto's first race, sophisticated assessments of his heart and breathing stamped him as a valued racing prospect. The scientific method led a German baron's family to buy Soto last winter, and it has helped turn Soto into an undefeated Kentucky Derby hopeful.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Doug O'Neill won his first training title at the Fairplex Park meeting earlier this year.

"I won a belt buckle I haven't seen," he said. "I was thinking of putting it on a necklace, like Eminem. Well, maybe not."

At least, O'Neill is a better trainer than a fashion consultant.

Through Thursday, he was leading the trainer standings at the Hollywood Park fall meeting, with 10 wins, three more than Bobby Frankel. O'Neill had a four-race lead on the red-hot Leonard Duncan, who was tied with Bob Baffert and A.C. Avila for third.

HOUSTON - With two of the six fillies and mares entered expected to scratch from Saturday's $275,000 Great State Challenge Distaff at Sam Houston Race Park, Take Charge Lady was expected to have only four opponents.

The connections of Hunka Hunka Lori Z had tried since Wednesday to make travel arrangements from her Laurel Park base in Maryland, but on Friday morning said they were almost certain the filly would be scratched.

"We tried everything," said Charles Reed, who co-owns Hunka Hunka Lori Z with Mike Zanella.

SPOKANE, Wash. - Eric Nelson, who has been granted a license - but not dates - to conduct racing at Playfair next year, has asked eastern Washington horsemen to sign proxies giving their bargaining rights to Bob Johnston, president of Inland Empire Horsemen's Association.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Beautiful America has done enough this year to earn herself the New York-bred juvenile filly championship, but if voters have any doubts, they will get another chance to see her in action in Sunday's $75,000-added East View at Aqueduct.

Beautiful America is 4 for 5 lifetime, including wins in her last three starts, and is one of six 2-year-old fillies in the 1 1/16-mile East View, for New York-breds.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Madame Pietra has essentially become her own boss this year.

Without being asked to meet specific workout times or follow a certain style in races, the 5-year-old Madame Pietra has won two sprint stakes this year for owner Carl Grether and trainer Howard Zucker.

NEW ORLEANS - With just a $75,000 purse, Sunday's Tenacious Handicap may not be a very lucrative race, but it has just about everything else. There are wounded warriors like Fifty Stars and Valhol trying to come back from injuries; a turf horse, Freefourinternet, trying to transfer his form to dirt; and Connected and Rock Slide, who have flashed brilliance but never quite delivered it.