MIAMI - Trainer Milt Wolfson celebrated the last New Year's Day with a victory by Stormy Frolic in the Tropical Park Oaks. On Wednesday he could be drinking a toast to her baby brother Super Frolic if he can defeat 11 other 3-year-olds in the $100,000 Tropical Park Derby.

The Grade 3 Tropical Park Derby is traditionally the first graded race for 3-year-olds in the United States each year and will share top billing on the 12-race New Year's day card with its filly filly counterpart, the $100,000 Tropical Park Oaks.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Pat Reynolds will try to ring in the New Year the same way he rang out the old: by winning a stakes race.

Sunday, New York's final day of racing in 2002, Reynolds won the Alex M. Robb with Tom's Thunder. Wednesday, when the 2003 season begins, Reynolds will try to win Aqueduct's $75,000 Interborough Handicap with Shawklit Mint.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Things are going so well for trainer Bruce Levine these days that someone gave him $10 Monday morning to purchase lottery tickets. "We'll split the winnings," the man said.

It seems like everything Levine has touched recently has turned to gold. Coyote Lakes, Levine's golden oldie, won his third consecutive Gallant Fox Handicap, at age 8, on Saturday at Aqueduct. On Sunday, Levine scored with Svea Dahl, who won the $50,000 Carousel Stakes at Laurel Park.

ALBANY, Calif. - When Jim Hilling began to train Irish-bred Mister Fire Eyes in 1997, he said he felt like D. Wayne Lukas, but it wasn't because of the horse's ability.

Lukas frequently has two handlers escort horses to the track. Hilling also used two handlers with Mister Fire Eyes - not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

Mister Fire Eyes was so difficult to handle that Hilling sometimes had to saddle him on the fly as he walked around the paddock.

MIAMI - If Wednesday's $100,000 Tropical Park Oaks at Calder has a familiar look it doesn't necessarily mean you're seeing double from too much New Year's Eve revelry. It's because the field for the 1 1/16-mile Oaks contains five of the first six fillies across the wire from last month's Hollywood Wildcat Stakes.

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Attendance and handle declined in 2002 at Thistledown, which closed its 187-day meet Dec. 23.

Attendance for the meet totaled 642,918, for an average of 3,438 customers per day. Both the total and average are down 5 percent from the 187-day meet in 2001, when total attendance was 678,876 and average attendance was 3,630.

All-sources handle at the meet declined 11 percent. A total of $116.8 million was bet for a daily average of $625,122. In 2001, a total of $132 million was wagered for an average of $706,105.

EAST BOSTON, Mass. - The New Year's Day program begins a scheduled six-month run of racing at Suffolk Downs, but with Rockingham Park announcing it would not hold a Thoroughbred meet this summer, the Suffolk season could continue past the scheduled closing day of June 7.

ALBANY, Calif. - Jockey Macario Rodriguez was slightly injured Sunday when Palermitano broke down 20 yards from the finish line in the second race at Golden Gate Fields.

Rodriguez, who has 11 victories at the meeting, had bruised knees and a sore right wrist after sliding into one of the posts holding up the inner rail. X-rays revealed no broken bones.

Palermitano, a 3-year-old gelding who was running second when he fell, fractured his left front leg and had to be euthanized.

Some of the better Kentucky horses have gone south for the winter to Florida, others to Louisiana. But a few of those who will head to Oaklawn Park in Arkansas continue to stick around Kentucky.

That makes a race like Wednesday's $50,000 Holiday Cheer at Turfway Park stronger than it would be if it were contested in February. The Holiday Cheer has attracted Bidis, an Oaklawn stakes-quality sprinter.

ALBANY, Calif. - Wednesday's $75,000 Lafayette Handicap at Golden Gate Fields is an interesting and competitive race that should start the New Year on a promising note.

The nine-horse field contains a pair of entries: a two-horse coupling of Epic Honor and San Nicolas and a four-horse entry of last year's Lafayette winner I'madrifter, Chinkapin, Surprized, and Halo Cat. Because of the entries, there will be only five betting interests.