Retama Park near San Antonio will be home to some of the top Texas-breds in training during its eighth season of racing, which opens Friday night with two of the state's best older horses, Lights on Broadway and Boots on Sunday, taking on open company in the $30,000 J.R. Straus Memorial Stakes.

The 51-night season runs through Oct. 26.

In many ways, the Retama meet is a celebration of everything Texas. That point will be driven home Oct. 12, when the track inducts six new members into its Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

Boots on Sunday goes for a repeat win Friday night in the $30,000 J.R. Straus Memorial, a six-furlong stakes for older horses that ushers in the eighth season of racing at Retama Park near San Antonio.

The race drew nine others, including stakes winners Lights on Broadway, Two Punch Sonny, and Front Nine.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - When Harvey Vanier takes a young horse to Florida with him in the winter, especially an Illinois-bred that could stay with Vanier's Chicago string and run for statebred purses, it's more than whimsy. It means Vanier has hopes for the horse, and indeed, there were expectations for Mucho Rapido this year.

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Mike Rowland won his 27th local riding title at the recently concluded Thistledown meet, when he won with 50 of his 245 mounts. Luis Gonzalez was second with 45 wins, and Lyndon Hannigan was third with 40.

Trainer Andy Konkoly notched his second meeting title, with 24 winners from 89 runners. Miguel Feliciano finished second, winning 22 of 87, followed by Rodney Faulkner, who sent of 20 winners from 105 horses.

MUSKEGON, Mich. - Jockey Terry Houghton won four races here Tuesday and has moved past Ramon Dominguez for the second spot in the national rider standings. Through Tuesday, Houghton had won 223 races this year and Dominguez 217. Russell Baze led all jockeys in wins with 233. Houghton also had a hat trick on Friday and Saturday.

COLLINSVILLE, Ill. - Saturday night's Red Cloud Handicap may have been the most exciting race of the meet. Canyon De Oro, ridden by J. D. Hundley, went wire to wire, holding on by a nose after a stretch duel with favorite Bulldog George.

For Canyon De Oro's owner, Gary Rotermund, and his wife, Shelia, the victory temporarily took their minds off a terrible event.

The Pennsylvania Governor's Cup Handicap, Penn National's most prestigious stakes race, has undergone two major changes this season.

The Governor's Cup, which will be run for the 30th time Saturday night, remains on the turf, but has been shortened in distance from 1 1/16 miles to five furlongs. The purse has also been reduced, from $100,000 to $50,000.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Davids Expectation, perhaps the hottest 3-year-old at Woodbine, will experiment on the grass on Friday in the $80,900 allowance prep for the Play the King Handicap, a Grade 3 event on Aug. 17.

Davids Expectation is coupled in the Mockingbird Farm entry with last year's Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap winner, Exciting Story, who was entered for the main track only.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Apprentice jockey Chantal Sutherland had set three goals for herself heading into the current season.

"I wanted to be a top 10 rider, and to go for another Sovereign" as top apprentice, said Sutherland. "And my ultimate goal was to be considered for an Eclipse."

Sutherland rode 44 winners at Woodbine to rank 17th in the overall standings last year and was a runaway winner of the Sovereign Award as Canada's outstanding apprentice.

DEL MAR, Calif. - First it was knee chips, then an 11th-hour sale before the Kentucky Derby, then a controversy regarding bonus money, and then a stumble at the start of the Belmont Stakes when attempting to win the Triple Crown. With War Emblem, winner of the Derby and Preakness Stakes, nothing has ever been business as usual.