ARCADIA, Calif. - Gary Stevens is used to springing into action when he hears "Riders, up." Now, you can add, "Lights, camera, action."

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Improving 3-year-old Leloup continued his progress last weekend with a stylish 3 3/4-length win in a $50,000 optional claiming race at Hastings Park.

It was his third straight win and his first time going a middle distance. He looks like a horse with a bright future but local fans won't get to see him until next year, if at all. Leloup is owned and trained by Peter Stephen and is to be shipped to Sunland Park in New Mexico.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Canterbury Park on Thursday announced its intention to add slot machine gambling to its current menu of live racing, simulcasting, and card club wagering. A constitutional amendment or legislation is needed to allow slot machines at Canterbury.

Canterbury's proposed "Racino" includes the development of its existing 367-acre property into a multipurpose gambling and entertainment facility that would include slot machine and video gambling, an Olympic-styled equestrian park, an agricultural exposition facility, and a hotel and conference center.

The Board of Trustees of the New York Racing Association on Wednesday approved a schedule of 261 racing days for 2003 that includes a one-week extension of the Belmont fall meet.

Belmont's fall meet, which has been run at 5 1/2 weeks since 1996, will be extended to 6 1/2 weeks, or 38 days, in 2003. The meet will run from Sept. 5 through Oct. 26.

FORT ERIE, Ontario - Freeze Alert shipped in from Delaware Park and captured a $10,000 starter allowance race at Fort Erie on Tuesday.

Freeze Alert, a 5-year-old horse, ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.63, the second-fastest time for the distance at the meet. It was a great homecoming for Freeze Alert's trainer, Deborah Simpson, who left Fort Erie seven years ago to take a break from a training career filled with highs and lows.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Mike Keogh will have plenty to ponder in the next couple of weeks, with Wando preparing to invade Arlington Park for the Oct. 26 Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Mobil looking to hold the fort at Woodbine in Saturday's Cup and Saucer.

Wando, who suffered a severe cut on his right hind leg when he won the Grey here last Sunday, went back to the track for the first time Thursday morning.

"We took him out and jogged him a mile and a half," said Keogh. "The incision looks good, but he'll still be on antibiotics for a few days."

DALLAS - Paco Loco has taken the overland route to get to the $100,000 Texas Hall of Fame Stakes at Retama Park near San Antonio. A couple of trail rides have helped take the edge off the talented but sometimes too aggressive gelding, who on Saturday night gets a rematch with top Texas-bred Desert Darby.

The Hall of Fame, run over 1 1/16 miles on turf, is one of seven Thoroughbred stakes on the card. Purses for the races total $470,000, making the program the richest of the meet at Retama.

DALLAS - In the colts and geldings division of the $125,000 Texas Stallion Stakes on Saturday night at Retama Park, some sort of pecking order should be established with a number of the state's top 2-year-olds entered in the six-furlong race, including Action Tonight, Leo's Last Hurrahy, Screen Pass, and Father Martin.

The race is one of seven restricted stakes on a card designed to celebrate inductions into the Texas Hall of Fame.

MIAMI - The undefeated Lavender Lass would have likely been the second choice in the wagering behind Ivanavinalot in the $400,000 My Dear Girl Stakes had trainer Bill White opted to run her. But White, Calder's perennial leading trainer, decided he would rather start her as the odds-on favorite in the $75,000 Cassidy Stakes, a six-furlong dash for 2-year-old fillies that is part of the undercard for Saturday's $1.65 million Festival of the Sun program.

MIAMI - Trainers Todd Pletcher and Marty Wolfson will be trying for duplicate victories with Texas Glitter and Coolbythepool on Saturday's Festival of the Sun undercard at Calder.

Texas Glitter has shipped back to south Florida to defend his title in the $100,000 Calder Turf Sprint Handicap while Coolbythepool seeks to repeat his victory here a year ago in the $100,000 Shocker T. Handicap.