On Saturday, Belmont Park will card 10 races restricted to New York-bred runners, the type of races that are often ignored by bettors for being low-quality events designed to reward the best of a bad bunch with subsidized purses.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Thebigapple has the perfect name to win Saturday's $250,000 Empire Classic, one of seven New York-bred stakes on New York Showcase Day at Belmont Park. More importantly, the 3-year-old has the looks of a horse with stakes potential.

Thebigapple will make his stakes debut in the 1 1/8-mile Empire Classic after winning 3 of 7 lifetime starts for the white-hot Bruce Levine. Through Monday, Levine had saddled 11 winners from 36 starters at the meet and was third in the trainer standings.

Thebigapple accounted for two of Levine's wins at the Belmont fall meet.

ELMONT, N.Y. - The New York Racing Association released its stakes schedule for Aqueduct's 2003 winter and spring meets.

The schedule includes 34 stakes worth $4,325,000 and covers racing from Jan. 1 through May 4, the final day of Aqueduct's spring meet.

EDMONTON, Alberta - Although the final few weeks of the season offer little in the way of stakes at Northlands Park, October has been an interesting month. Jockeys Quincy Welch and Rickey Walcott have gone toe to toe in the battle for top honors at the meeting.

Heading into the final weekend at Northlands, the two are separated by just one victory, with Welch in the lead.

Welch won the title at the spring meet in Calgary by 10 wins. He is currently in position to take home top honors in Alberta again this year, duplicating the feat he accomplished in 2001.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The $75,000 Sunny Slope Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday will not be confused with a top-class race for 2-year-olds. Many of the circuit's top 2-year-olds are traveling to the Breeders' Cup at Arlington Park on Oct. 26, leaving the six-furlong Sunny Slope to lesser horses who are trying to develop into something.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Sligo Bay earned a vacation in June after he finished off the board for the third consecutive race.

"He got a little sour on me," trainer Beau Greely said.

The vacation ends on Friday when Sligo Bay starts in a $53,000 allowance race/optional claimer over 1 1/4 miles on turf at Santa Anita. The race could lead to a start in the Grade 1 Hollywood Turf Cup over 1 1/2 miles on Nov. 23.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - It's why they call it insurance. A stable coupling trained by Ken McPeek was pounded down to 2-5 in the fourth race Wednesday at Keeneland, clearly because one of the McPeek colts, Mustang Jock, had run so well in two previous starts and was being ridden by the ever popular Pat Day.

Trainer Jack Brooks will be busy, saddling four of the 10 finalists, including fastest qualifier Dashin Prince Henry, in the Grade 1, $152,700 Dash for Cash Derby on Friday night at Lone Star Park.

The other Brooks-trained qualifiers to the 440-yard derby are Friday 123, First Regards, and Fit to Fly.

Jockey Jacky Martin, who rode each of the four Brooks qualifiers in the Oct. 4 trials, will ride Dashin Prince Henry in the finals.

Dashin Prince Henry won his 440-yard trial by a neck in 21.630 seconds.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Jockey Ron Warren Jr. stands 5-foot-4, but he has gained stature in his neighborhood.

Warren was pictured in the Oct. 14 edition of Sports Illustrated along with 71 other athletes who will appear in a soon-to-be-published book, "Athlete," by photographer Howard Schatz.

"My wife's friends don't know much about racing, but this got them interested," Warren said of his photo. "My son's friends were really excited about it."

SELMA, Texas - In a few years, owner Richard Englander could have some competition from Mark Cornett atop the national standings. Cornett, who won three stakes during the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame program Saturday night at Retama Park, has spent the last year and a half building up a 90-horse stable, mostly via the claim box, and employs trainers from Louisiana to Ohio to West Virginia to Pennsylvania.