COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - Coming from off the pace on a day when steady showers turned the track from fast to sloppy, Crack the Vault ($24.20) won Tuesday's $25,600 Forego Handicap under jockey Vicente Flores, who was capping a riding triple. The win was the first in a stakes for trainer Carmelo Mendoza, who is on his own this year after serving as assistant to Ronnie Ward for several years. Crack the Vault, a 4-year-old homebred gelding, won his sixth lifetime start and raised his earnings above $145,000.

It was a busy week at Great Lakes Downs, which hosted a half dozen stakes races which lead up to the Oct. 5 Michigan Sires Stakes, the jewel of the track's stakes program.

Each of the six statebred races was worth $45,000.

Tuesday's Frontier Stakes at 1 1/8 miles, featured the return of local champion Secret Romeo. A 4-year-old, owned by Tony Catenacci, Secret Romeo closed strongly to defeat past champion That Gift by 1 1/4 lengths in a time of 1:54.59, two ticks off the track record.

Paul Jones's weekend is full of promise as he trains the fastest qualifiers for the $33,660 Professional's Choice California Challenge and the Grade 3, $42,210 Bayer Legend California Challenge at Los Alamitos.

Friday night, the Jones-trained JA Runaway Dash is going for his fourth straight win in the Professional's Choice California Challenge, a 350-yard race for 3-year-olds who ran for a claiming price in the past 12 months.

JA Runaway Dash's three wins in his last three starts include his trial win with the fastest qualifying time of 17.79 seconds for the 350 yards.

BOSSIER CITY, La. - The $300,000 Oklahoma Derby last month was a breakout race for The Judge Sez Who, a yearling sale reject who has worked his way from the claiming ranks to become one of the favorites for the Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs on Saturday.

"He's a Horatio Alger story," said his owner, Richard Simon. "From nothing to something."

Duckhorn, the likely favorite for Saturday's $200,000 Maryland Million Classic, worked a bullet five furlongs in 59.80 seconds on Tuesday at Churchill Downs.

The 1 3/16-mile Classic is one of 10 races at Pimlico on Saturday for the progeny of Maryland-based sires. Last week, 162 horses were pre-entered for the 17th Maryland Million, which offers total purses of $1 million. Post positions were to be drawn Wednesday.

Duckhorn, trained by Patrick Byrne, is scheduled to arrive at Pimlico on Friday morning. New York-based rider Richard Migliore has the mount.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Affirmed Success has begun to show his age. That is why the career of the 8-year gelding - one of the most durable, versatile, and consistent racehorses of recent times - is in limbo.

Trainer Richard Schosberg said Affirmed Success is in the middle of a 30-day vacation at owner-breeder Al Fried's Buttonwood Farm in Westchester County. He will not make any of New York's important sprint races this fall such as Saturday's Grade 1 Vosburgh Stakes or the Grade 1 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Nov. 30.

POMONA, Calif. - Horseplayers will find few conspicuous reasons to back Margaret's Fancy in the $50,000 Bustles and Bows Stakes on Thursday at Fairplex Park.

Her class is suspect. She has never started in this country. She has never raced on dirt, and will be outrun early in the 6 1/2-furlong stakes for 2-year-old fillies. Three weeks since arriving from England, Margaret's Fancy has much to overcome.

Or maybe not. Because as trainer Paul Aguirre cautioned, "If they go fast in front of her, they're going to have to deal with her in the lane."

ELMONT, N.Y. - The presence of promising 3-year-olds True Direction and Saint Marden in separate allowance races highlight an extremely strong Thursday card at Belmont Park that features five allowance races and overflow fields in four maiden events.

True Direction, who won three straight races in the spring, including the Hirsch Jacobs Stakes at Pimlico on Preakness Day, will meet older horses for the first time when he returns in a third-level allowance heat at six furlongs.

AUBURN, Wash. - Emerald Downs ended its seventh and most successful season after 91 days of racing on Monday, registering record numbers in total handle and purse distribution.

Total wagering from all sources at the meeting was $114,070,450 for a daily average of $1,253,521, up 11 percent from last year's daily average of $1,128,883. The previous high was $1,241,239 in 1999.

CHICAGO - Arlington's third-level turf allowance division for females is starting to look like a social club. Every couple weeks the same gaggle of fillies gets together for a half-hour or so, moseying around the paddock, walking out to the track together and taking turns beating one another in a grass race.